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HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
OF  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 


ETHICS 

By  G.  E.  MOORE 


London 

WILLIAMS  &  NOR  GATE 


HENRY  HOLT  &  Co.,  New  York 
Canada  :  WM.  BRIGGS,  Toronto 
India  :  R.  &  T.  WASHBOURNE,  Ltd. 


HOME 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 

OF 

MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 


Editors  : 

HERBERT  FISHER,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 

Prof.  GILBERT  MURRAY,  D.LlTT., 
LL.D.,  F.B.A. 

PROF.  J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON,  M.A. 

Prof.  WILLIAM  T.  BREWSTER,  M.A. 
(Columbia  University,  U.S.A.) 


IE 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


ETHICS 


BY 

\f 


G.  E.  MOORE 


LECTURER  IN  MORAL  SCIENCE  IN  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE 


JUN  26  1913 
[&0SICAL  $3*5 


LONDON 

WILLIAMS  AND  NORGATE 


Printed  by 

Morrison  &  Gibb  Limited 

Edinburgh 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 


Utilitarianism . 

Utilitarianism  (i concluded )  . 

The  Objectivity  of  Moral  Judgments 


PAGE 

7 

40 

79 


The  Objectivity  of  Moral  Judgments 

{concluded) . 

Results  the  Test  of  Right  and  Wrong  . 
Free  Will 

Intrinsic  Value . 

Note  on  Books . 

Index  . 


133 

170 

196 

223 

253 

255 


ETHICS 


CHAPTER  I 

UTILITARIANISM 

Ethics  is  a  subject  about  which  there  has 
been  and  still  is  an  immense  amount  of 
difference  of  opinion,  in  spite  of  all  the  time 
and  labour  which  have  been  devoted  to  the 
study  of  it.  There  are  indeed  certain  matters 
about  which  there  is  not  much  disagree¬ 
ment.  Almost  everybody  is  agreed  that 
certain  kinds  of  actions  ought,  as  a  general 
rule,  to  be  avoided ;  and  that  under  certain 
circumstances,  which  constantly  recur,  it  is, 
as  a  general  rule,  better  to  act  in  certain 
specified  ways  rather  than  in  others.  There 
is,  moreover,  a  pretty  general  agreement,  with 
regard  to  certain  things  which  happen  in 
the  world,  that  it  would  be  better  if  they 
never  happened,  or,  at  least,  did  not  happen 


8 


ETHICS 


so  often  as  they  do  ;  and  with  regard  to 
others,  that  it  would  be  better  if  they  hap¬ 
pened  more  often  than  they  do.  But  on 
many  questions,  even  of  this  kind,  there  is 
great  diversity  of  opinion.  Actions  which 
some  philosophers  hold  to  be  generally 
wrong,  others  hold  to  be  generally  right, 
and  occurrences  which  some  hold  to  be 
evils,  others  hold  to  be  goods. 

And  when  we  come  to  more  fundamental 
questions  the  difference  of  opinion  is  even  more 
marked.  Ethical  philosophers  have,  in  fact, 
been  largely  concerned,  not  with  laying  down 
rules  to  the  effect  that  certain  ways  of  acting 
are  generally  or  always  right,  and  others 
generally  or  always  wrong,  nor  yet  with 
giving  lists  of  things  which  are  good  and 
others  which  are  evil,  but  with  trying  to 
answer  more  general  and  fundamental 
questions  such  as  the  following.  What, 
after  all,  is  it  that  we  mean  to  say  of  an 
action  when  we  say  that  it  is  right  or  ought 
to  be  done  ?  And  what  is  it  that  we  mean 
to  say  of  a  state  of  things  when  we  say  that 
it  is  good  or  bad  ?  Can  we  discover  any 
general  characteristic,  which  belongs  in 


UTILITARIANISM 


9 


common  to  absolutely  all  right  actions,  no 
matter  how  different  they  may  be  in  other 
respects  ?  and  which  does  not  belong  to 
any  actions  except  those  which  are  right  ? 
And  can  we  similarly  discover  any  char¬ 
acteristic  which  belongs  in  common  to 
absolutely  all  “  good  ”  things,  and  which 
does  not  belong  to  any  thing  except  what  is 
a  good  ?  Or  again,  can  we  discover  any 
single  reason,  applicable  to  all  right  actions 
equally,  which  is,  in  every  case,  the  reason 
why  an  action  is  right,  when  it  is  right  ? 
And  can  we,  similarly,  discover  any  reason 
which  is  the  reason  why  a  thing  is  good, 
when  it  is  good,  and  which  also  gives  us 
the  reason  why  any  one  thing  is  better  than 
another,  when  it  is  better  ?  Or  is  there, 
perhaps,  no  such  single  reason  in  either  case  ? 
On  questions  of  this  sort  different  philo¬ 
sophers  still  hold  the  most  diverse  opinions. 
I  think  it  is  true  that  absolutely  every 
answer  which  has  ever  been  given  to  them 
by  any  one  philosopher  would  be  denied 
to  be  true  by  many  others.  There  is,  at  any 
rate,  no  such  consensus  of  opinion  among 
experts  about  these  fundamental  ethical 


10 


ETHICS 


questions,  as  there  is  about  many  funda¬ 
mental  propositions  in  Mathematics  and 
the  Natural  Sciences. 

Now,  it  is  precisely  questions  of  this  sort, 
about  every  one  of  which  there  are  serious 
differences  of  opinion,  that  I  wish  to  dis¬ 
cuss  in  this  book.  And  from  the  fact  that 
so  much  difference  of  opinion  exists  about 
them  it  is  natural  to  infer  that  they  are 
questions  about  which  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  discover  the  truth.  This  is,  I 
think,  really  the  case.  The  probability  is, 
that  hardly  any  positive  proposition,  which 
can  as  yet  be  offered  in  answer  to  them, 
will  be  strictly  and  absolutely  true.  With 
regard  to  negative  propositions,  indeed, — 
propositions  to  the  effect  that  certain  positive 
answers  which  have  been  offered,  are  false, — 
the  case  seems  to  be  different.  We  are,  I 
think,  justified  in  being  much  more  certain 
that  some  of  the  positive  suggestions  which 
have  been  made  are  not  true,  than  that  any 
particular  one  among  them  is  true  ;  though 
even  here,  perhaps,  we  are  not  justified  in 
being  absolutely  certain. 

But  even  if  we  cannot  be  justified  either  in 


UTILITARIANISM 


II 


accepting  or  rejecting,  with  absolute  certainty, 
any  of  the  alternative  hypotheses  which  can  be 
suggested,  it  is,  I  think,  well  worth  while  to 
consider  carefully  the  most  important  among 
these  rival  hypotheses.  To  realise  and  dis¬ 
tinguish  clearly  from  one  another  the  most 
important  of  the  different  views  which  may 
be  held  about  these  matters  is  well  worth 
doing,  even  if  we  ought  to  admit  that  the 
best  of  them  has  no  more  than  a  certain 
amount  of  probability  in  its  favour,  and 
that  the  worst  have  just  a  possibility  of 
being  true.  This,  therefore,  is  what  I  shall 
try  to  do.  I  shall  try  to  state  and  dis¬ 
tinguish  clearly  from  one  another  what 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  most  important  of  the 
different  views  which  may  be  held  upon  a 
few  of  the  most  fundamental  ethical  ques¬ 
tions.  Some  of  these  views  seem  to  me  to 
be  much  nearer  the  truth  than  others,  and 
I  shall  try  to  indicate  which  these  are.  But 
even  where  it  seems  pretty  certain  that 
some  one  view  is  erroneous,  and  that  another 
comes,  at  least,  rather  nearer  to  the  truth, 
it  is  very  difficult  to  be  sure  that  the  latter 
is  strictly  and  absolutely  true. 


12 


ETHICS 


One  great  difficulty  which  arises  in  ethical 
discussions  is  the  difficulty  of  getting  quite 
clear  as  to  exactly  what  question  it  is  that 
we  want  to  answer.  And  in  order  to  mini¬ 
mise  this  difficulty,  I  propose  to  begin,  in 
these  first  two  chapters,  by  stating  one 
particular  theory,  which  seems  to  me  to  be 
peculiarly  simple  and  easy  to  understand. 
It  is  a  theory  which,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
comes  very  near  to  the  truth  in  some  re¬ 
spects,  but  is  quite  false  in  others.  And 
why  I  propose  to  begin  with  it  is  merely 
because  I  think  it  brings  out  particularly 
clearly  the  difference  between  several  quite 
distinct  questions,  which  are  liable  to  be 
confused  with  one  another.  If,  after  stating 
this  theory,  we  then  go  on  to  consider  the 
most  important  objections  which  might  be 
urged  against  it,  for  various  reasons,  we  shall, 
I  think,  pretty  well  cover  the  main  topics 
of  ethical  discussion,  so  far  as  fundamental 
principles  are  concerned. 

This  theory  starts  from  the  familiar  fact 
that  we  all  very  often  seem  to  have  a  choice 
between  several  different  actions,  any  one 


UTILITARIANISM 


13 


of  which  we  might  do,  if  we  chose.  Whether, 
in  such  cases,  we  really  do  have  a  choice,  in 
the  sense  that  we  ever  really  could  choose 
any  other  action  than  the  one  which  in  the 
end  we  do  choose,  is  a  question  upon  which 
it  does  not  pronounce  and  which  will  have  to 
be  considered  later  on.  All  that  the  theory 
assumes  is  that,  in  many  cases,  there  certainly 
are  a  considerable  number  of  different 
actions,  any  one  of  which  we  could  do,  if 
we  chose,  and  between  which,  therefore,  in 
this  sense,  we  have  a  choice  ;  while  there  are 
others  which  we  could  not  do,  even  if  we 
did  choose  to  do  them.  It  assumes,  that  is 
to  say,  that  in  many  cases,  if  we  had  chosen 
differently,  we  should  have  acted  differently ; 
and  this  seems  to  be  an  unquestionable  fact, 
which  must  be  admitted,  even  if  we  hold 
that  it  is  never  the  case  that  we  could  have 
chosen  differently.  Our  theory  assumes, 
then,  that  many  of  our  actions  are  under 
the  control  of  our  wills,  in  the  sense  that 
if  just  before  we  began  to  do  them,  we  had 
chosen  not  to  do  them,  we  should  not  have 
done  them  ;  and  I  propose  to  call  all  actions 
of  this  kind  voluntary  actions. 


14 


ETHICS 


It  should  be  noticed  that,  if  we  define  volun¬ 
tary  actions  in  this  way,  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  all  or  nearly  all  voluntary  actions 
are  actually  themselves  chosen  or  willed.  It 
seems  highly  probable  that  an  immense 
number  of  the  actions  which  we  do,  and 
which  we  could  have  avoided,  if  we  had  chosen 
to  avoid  them,  were  not  themselves  willed 
at  all.  It  is  only  true  of  them  that  they  are 
“  voluntary  ”  in  the  sense  that  a  particular 
act  of  will,  just  before  their  occurrence,  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  'prevent  them  ;  not 
in  the  sense  that  they  themselves  were 
brought  about  by  being  willed.  And  perhaps 
there  is  some  departure  from  common  usage 
in  calling  all  such  acts  “  voluntary.”  I  do 
not  think,  however,  that  it  is  in  accordance 
with  common  usage  to  restrict  the  name 
“  voluntary  ”  to  actions  which  are  quite 
certainly  actually  willed.  And  the  class 
of  actions  to  which  I  propose  to  give  the 
name  —  all  those,  namely,  which  we  could 
have  prevented,  if,  immediately  beforehand, 
we  had  willed  to  do  so — do,  I  think,  certainly 
require  to  be  distinguished  by  some  special 
name.  It  might,  perhaps,  be  thought  that 


UTILITARIANISM 


15 


almost  all  our  actions,  or  even,  in  a  sense, 
absolutely  all  those,  which  properly  deserve 
to  be  called  44  ours,”  are  44  voluntary  ”  in 
this  sense  :  so  that  the  use  of  this  special 
name  is  unnecessary :  we  might,  instead, 
talk  simply  of  44  our  actions.”  And  it  is, 

I  think,  true  that  almost  all  the  actions,  of 
which  we  should  generally  think,  when  we 
talk  of  44  our  actions,”  are  of  this  nature  ; 
and  even  that,  in  some  contexts,  when  we 
talk  of  44  human  actions,”  we  do  refer  ex¬ 
clusively  to  actions  of  this  sort.  But  in 
other  contexts  such  a  way  of  speaking  would 
be  misleading.  It  is  quite  certain  that  both 
our  bodies  and  our  minds  constantly  do 
things,  which  we  certainly  could  not  have 
prevented,  by  merely  willing  just  beforehand 
that  they  should  not  be  done  ;  and  some,  at 
least,  of  these  things,  which  our  bodies  and 
minds  do,  would  in  certain  contexts  be 
called  actions  of  ours.  There  would  there¬ 
fore  be  some  risk  of  confusion  if  we  were  to 
speak  of  44  human  actions  ”  generally,  when 
we  mean  only  actions  which  are  44  voluntary  ” 
in  the  sense  I  have  defined.  It  is  better, 
therefore,  to  give  some  special  name  to 


16 


ETHICS 


actions  of  this  class  ;  and  I  cannot  think  of 
any  better  name  than  that  of  “  voluntary  ” 
actions.  If  we  require  further  to  distinguish 
from  among  them,  those  which  are  also 
voluntary  in  the  sense  that  we  definitely 
willed  to  do  them,  we  can  do  so  by  calling 
these  “  willed  ”  actions. 

Our  theory  holds,  then,  that  a  great  many 
of  our  actions  are  voluntary  in  the  sense  that 
we  could  have  avoided  them,  if \  just  before¬ 
hand,  we  had  chosen  to  do  so.  It  does  not 
pretend  to  decide  whether  we  could  have 
thus  chosen  to  avoid  them  ;  it  only  says 
that,  if  we  had  so  chosen,  we  should  have 
succeeded.  And  its  first  concern  is  to  lay 
down  some  absolutely  universal  rules  as  to 
the  conditions  under  which  actions  of  this 
kind  are  right  or  wrong  ;  under  which  they 
ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done  ;  and  under 
which  it  is  our  duty  to  do  them  or  not  to  do 
them.  It  is  quite  certain  that  we  do  hold 
that  many  voluntary  actions  are  right  and 
others  wrong ;  that  many  ought  to  have  been 
done,  and  others  ought  not  to  have  been 
done  ;  and  that  it  was  the  agent’s  duty  to 
do  some  of  them,  and  his  duty  not  to 


UTILITARIANISM 


17 


do  others.  Whether  any  actions,  except 
voluntary  ones,  can  be  properly  said  to  be 
right  or  wrong,  or  to  be  actions  which  ought 
or  ought  not  to  have  been  done,  and,  if  so, 
in  what  sense  and  under  what  conditions,  is 
again  a  question  which  our  theory  does  not 
presume  to  answer.  It  only  assumes  that 
these  things  can  be  properly  said  of  some 
voluntary  actions,  whether  or  not  they  can 
also  be  said  of  other  actions  as  well.  It 
confines  itself,  therefore,  strictly  to  voluntary 
actions  ;  and  with  regard  to  these  it  asks 
the  following  questions.  Can  we  discover  any 
characteristic,  over  and  above  the  mere  fact 
that  they  are  right,  which  belongs  to  abso¬ 
lutely  all  voluntary  actions  which  are  right, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  does  not  belong 
to  any  except  those  which  are  right  ?  And 
similarly  :  Can  we  discover  any  character¬ 
istic,  over  and  above  the  mere  fact  that 
they  are  wrong,  which  belongs  to  absolutely 
all  voluntary  actions  which  are  wrong,  and 
which  at  the  same  time  does  not  belong 
to  any  except  those  which  are  wrong  ? 
And  so,  too,  in  the  case  of  the  words  44  ought  ” 
and  44  duty,”  it  wants  to  discover  some  char- 


18 


ETHICS 


acteristic  which  belongs  to  all  voluntary 
actions  which  ought  to  be  done  or  which  it 
is  our  duty  to  do,  and  which  does  not  belong 
to  any  except  those  which  we  ought  to  do  ; 
and  similarly  to  discover  some  characteristic 
which  belongs  to  all  voluntary  actions  which 
ought  not  to  be  done  and  which  it  is  our 
duty  not  to  do,  and  which  does  not  belong 
to  any  except  these.  To  all  these  questions 
our  theory  thinks  that  it  can  find  a  com¬ 
paratively  simple  answer.  And  it  is  this 
answer  which  forms  the  first  part  of  the 
theory.  It  is,  as  I  say,  a  comparatively 
simple  answer  ;  but  nevertheless  it  cannot 
be  stated  accurately  except  at  some  length. 
And  I  think  it  is  worth  while  to  try  to  state 
it  accurately. 

To  begin  with,  then,  this  theory  points  out 
that  all  actions  may,  theoretically  at  least, 
be  arranged  in  a  scale,  according  to  the 
proportion  between  the  total  quantities  of 
pleasure  or  pain  which  they  cause .  And 
when  it  talks  of  the  total  quantities  of  pleasure 
or  pain  which  an  action  causes,  it  is  extremely 
important  to  realise  that  it  means  quite 
strictly  what  it  says.  We  all  of  us  know 


UTILITARIANISM 


19 


that  many  of  our  actions  do  cause  pleasure 
and  pain  not  only  to  ourselves,  but  also  to 
other  human  beings,  and  sometimes,  perhaps, 
to  animals  as  well ;  and  that  the  effects  of  our 
actions,  in  this  respect,  are  often  not  con¬ 
fined  to  those  which  are  comparatively  direct 
and  immediate,  but  that  their  indirect  and 
remote  effects  are  sometimes  quite  equally 
important  or  even  more  so.  But  in  order 
to  arrive  at  the  total  quantities  of  pleasure 
or  pain  caused  by  an  action,  we  should,  of 
course,  have  to  take  into  account  absolutely  all 
its  effects,  both  near  and  remote,  direct  and 
indirect ;  and  we  should  have  to  take  into 
account  absolutely  all  the  beings,  capable  of 
feeling  pleasure  or  pain,  who  were  at  any 
time  affected  by  it  ;  not  only  ourselves, 
therefore,  and  our  fellow-men,  but  also  any 
of  the  lower  animals,  to  which  the  action 
might  cause  pleasure  or  pain,  however  in¬ 
directly  ;  and  also  any  other  beings  in  the 
Universe,  if  there  should  be  any,  who  might 
be  affected  in  the  same  way.  Some  people,  for 
instance,  hold  that  there  is  a  God  and  that 
there  are  disembodied  spirits,  who  may  be 
pleased  or  pained  by  our  actions  ;  and,  if 


20 


ETHICS 


this  is  so,  then,  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  total 
quantities  of  pleasure  or  pain  which  an 
action  causes,  we  should  have,  of  course,  to 
take  into  account,  not  only  the  pleasures  or 
pains  which  it  may  cause  to  men  and  animals 
upon  this  earth,  but  also  those  which  it  may 
cause  to  God  or  to  disembodied  spirits.  By 
the  total  quantities  of  pleasure  or  pain  which 
an  action  causes,  this  theory  means,  then, 
quite  strictly  what  it  says.  It  means  the 
quantities  which  would  be  arrived  at,  if  we 
could  take  into  account  absolutely  all  the 
amounts  of  pleasure  or  pain,  which  result 
from  the  action  ;  no  matter  how  indirect  or 
remote  these  results  may  be,  and  no  matter 
what  may  be  the  nature  of  the  beings  who  feel 
them. 

But  if  we  understand  the  total  quantities 
of  pleasure  or  pain  caused  by  an  action  in 
this  strict  sense,  then  obviously,  theoretically 
at  least,  six  different  cases  are  possible.  It 
is  obviously  theoretically  possible  in  the  first 
place  (1)  that  an  action  should,  in  its  total 
effects,  cause  some  pleasure  but  absolutely 
no  pain  ;  and  it  is  obviously  also  possible 
(2)  that,  while  it  causes  both  pleasure  and 


UTILITARIANISM 


21 


pain,  the  total  quantity  of  pleasure  should 
be  greater  than  the  total  quantity  of  pain. 
These  are  two  out  of  the  six  theoretically 
possible  cases ;  and  these  two  may  be 
grouped  together  by  saying  that,  in  both  of 
them,  the  action  in  question  causes  an 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain,  or  more  pleasure 
than  pain.  This  description  will,  of  course, 
if  taken  quite  strictly,  apply  only  to  the 
second  of  the  two  ;  since  an  action  which 
causes  no  pain  whatever  cannot  strictly  be 
said  to  cause  more  pleasure  than  pain.  But 
it  is  convenient  to  have  some  description, 
which  may  be  understood  to  cover  both 
cases  ;  and  if  we  describe  no  pain  at  all  as  a 
zero  quantity  of  pain,  then  obviously  we  may 
say  that  an  action  which  causes  some  pleasure 
and  no  pain,  does  cause  a  greater  quantity  of 
pleasure  than  of  pain,  since  any  positive 
quantity  is  greater  than  zero.  I  propose, 
therefore,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  to 
speak  of  both  these  first  two  cases  as  cases  in 
which  an  action  causes  an  excess  of  pleasure 
over  pain. 

But  obviously  two  other  cases,  which  are 
also  theoretically  possible,  are  (1)  that  in 


22 


ETHICS 


which  an  action,  in  its  total  effects,  causes 
some  pain  but  absolutely  no  pleasure,  and 
(2)  that  in  which,  while  it  causes  both  plea¬ 
sure  and  pain,  the  total  quantity  of  pain  is 
greater  than  the  total  quantity  of  pleasure . 
And  of  both  these  two  cases  I  propose  to 
speak,  for  the  reason  just  explained,  as  cases 
in  which  an  action  causes  an  excess  of  pain 
over  pleasure . 

There  remain  two  other  cases,  and  two  only, 
which  are  still  theoretically  possible  ;  namely 

(1)  that  an  action  should  cause  absolutely  no 
pleasure  and  also  absolutely  no  pain,  and 

(2)  that,  while  it  causes  both  pleasure  and 
pain,  the  total  quantities  of  each  should  be 
exactly  equal.  And  in  both  these  two  cases, 
we  may,  of  course,  say  that  the  action  in 
question  causes  no  excess  either  of  pleasure 
over  pain  or  of  pain  over  pleasure. 

Of  absolutely  every  action,  therefore,  it 
must  be  true,  in  the  sense  explained,  that  it 
either  causes  an  excess  of  pleasure  over  pain, 
or  an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure,  or  neither. 
This  threefold  division  covers  all  the  six 
possible  cases.  But,  of  course,  of  any  two 
actions,  both  of  which  cause  an  excess  of 


UTILITARIANISM 


23 


pleasure  over  pain,  or  of  pain  over  pleasure, 
it  may  be  true  that  the  excess  caused  by  the 
one  is  greater  than  that  caused  by  the  other. 
And,  this  being  so,  all  actions  may,  theoret¬ 
ically  at  least,  be  arranged  in  a  scale,  starting 
at  the  top  with  those  which  cause  the  greatest 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain  ;  passing  down¬ 
wards  by  degrees  through  cases  where  the 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain  is  continually 
smaller  and  smaller,  until  we  reach  those 
actions  which  cause  no  excess  either  of 
pleasure  over  pain  or  of  pain  over  pleasure  : 
then  starting  again  with  those  which  cause 
an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure,  but  only  the 
smallest  possible  one  ;  going  on  by  degrees 
to  cases  in  which  the  excess  of  pain  over  plea¬ 
sure  is  continually  larger  and  larger  ;  until  we 
reach,  at  the  bottom,  those  cases  in  which  the 
excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  is  the  greatest. 

The  principle  upon  which  this  scale 
is  arranged  is,  I  think,  perfectly  easy  to 
understand,  though  it  cannot  be  stated 
accurately  except  in  rather  a  complicated 
way.  The  principle  is  :  That  any  action 
which  causes  an  excess  of  pleasure  over  pain 
will  always  come  higher  in  the  scale  either 


24 


ETHICS 


than  an  action  which  causes  a  smaller  excess 
of  pleasure  over  pain,  or  than  an  action  which 
causes  no  excess  either  of  pleasure  over  pain 
or  of  pain  over  pleasure,  or  than  one  which 
causes  an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  That 
any  action  which  causes  no  excess  either  of 
pleasure  over  pain  or  of  pain  over  pleasure 
will  always  come  higher  than  any  which 
causes  an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  and 
finally  That  any,  which  causes  an  excess  of 
pain  over  pleasure,  will  always  come  higher 
than  one  which  causes  a  greater  excess  of 
pain  over  pleasure.  And  obviously  this 
statement  is  rather  complicated.  But  yet, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no  simpler  way  of 
stating  quite  accurately  the  principle  upon 
which  the  scale  is  arranged.  By  saying 
that  one  action  comes  higher  in  the  scale  than 
another,  we  may  mean  any  one  of  these  five 
different  things  ;  and  I  can  find  no  simple 
expression  which  will  really  apply  quite 
accurately  to  all  five  cases. 

But  it  has,  I  think,  been  customary, 
among  ethical  writers,  to  speak  loosely  of 
any  action,  which  comes  higher  in  this 
scale  than  another,  for  any  one  of  these 


UTILITARIANISM 


25 


five  reasons,  as  causing  more  pleasure  than 
that  other,  or  causing  a  greater  balance  of 
pleasure  over  pain.  For  instance,  if  we 
are  comparing  five  different  actions,  one  of 
which  comes  higher  in  the  scale  than  any  of 
the  rest,  it  has  been  customary  to  say  that, 
among  the  five,  this  is  the  one  which  causes 
a  maximum  of  pleasure,  or  a  maximum 
balance  of  pleasure  over  pain.  To  speak  in 
this  way  is  obviously  extremely  inaccurate, 
for  many  different  reasons.  It  is  obvious, 
for  instance,  that  an  action  which  comes 
lower  in  the  scale  may  actually  produce 
much  more  pleasure  than  one  which  comes 
higher,  provided  this  effect  is  counteracted 
by  its  also  causing  a  much  greater  quantity 
of  pain.  And  it  is  obvious  also  that,  of  two 
actions,  one  of  which  comes  higher  in  the 
scale  than  another,  neither  may  cause  a 
balance  of  pleasure  over  pain,  but  both 
actually  more  pain  than  pleasure.  For  these 
and  other  reasons  it  is  quite  inaccurate  to 
speak  as  if  the  place  of  an  action  in  the  scale 
were  determined  either  by  the  total  quantity 
of  pleasure  that  it  causes,  or  by  the  total 
balance  of  pleasure  over  pain.  But  this  way 


26 


ETHICS 


of  speaking,  though  inaccurate,  is  also  ex¬ 
tremely  convenient ;  and  of  the  two  alter¬ 
native  expressions,  the  one  which  is  the 
most  inaccurate  is  also  the  most  convenient. 
It  is  much  more  convenient  to  be  able  to 
refer  to  any  action  which  comes  higher  in 
the  scale  as  simply  causing  more  pleasure , 
than  to  have  to  say,  every  time,  that  it 
causes  a  greater  balance  of  pleasure  over  pain. 

I  propose,  therefore,  in  spite  of  its  inac¬ 
curacy,  to  adopt  this  loose  way  of  speaking. 
And  I  do  not  think  the  adoption  of  it  need  lead 
to  any  confusion,  provided  it  is  clearly  under¬ 
stood,  to  begin  with,  that  I  am  going  to  use 
the  words  in  this  loose  way.  It  must,  there¬ 
fore,  be  clearly  understood  that,  when,  in 
what  follows,  I  speak  of  one  action  as  causing 
more  pleasure  than  another,  I  shall  not  mean 
strictly  what  I  say,  but  only  that  the  former 
action  is  related  to  the  latter  in  one  or  other 
of  the  five  following  ways.  I  shall  mean  that 
the  two  actions  are  related  to  one  another 
either  (1)  by  the  fact  that,  while  both  cause 
an  excess  of  pleasure  over  pain,  the  former 
causes  a  greater  excess  than  the  latter  ;  or 
(2)  by  the  fact  that,  while  the  former  causes 


UTILITARIANISM 


27 


an  excess  of  pleasure  over  pain,  the  latter 
causes  no  excess  whatever  either  of  pleasure 
over  pain,  or  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  or  (3)  by 
the  fact  that,  while  the  former  causes  an 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain,  the  latter  causes 
an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  or  (4)  by 
the  fact  that,  while  the  former  causes  no 
excess  whatever  either  of  pleasure  over  pain 
or  of  pain  over  pleasure,  the  latter  does  cause 
an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  or  (5)  by 
the  fact  that,  while  both  cause  an  excess  of 
pain  over  pleasure,  the  former  causes  a 
smaller  excess  than  the  latter.  It  must  be 
remembered,  too,  that  in  every  case  we  shall 
be  speaking  of  the  total  quantities  of  pleasure 
and  pain  caused  by  the  actions,  in  the  strictest 
possible  sense  ;  taking  into  account,  that  is 
to  say,  absolutely  all  their  effects,  however 
remote  and  indirect. 

But  now,  if  we  understand  the  statement 
that  one  action  causes  more  pleasure  than 
another  in  the  sense  just  explained,  we  may 
express  as  follows  the  first  principle,  which 
the  theory  I  wish  to  state  lays  down  with 
regard  to  right  and  wrong,  as  applied  to 
voluntary  actions.  This  first  principle  is 


28 


ETHICS 


a  very  simple  one  ;  for  it  merely  asserts  : 
That  a  voluntary  action  is  right,  whenever 
and  only  when  the  agent  could  not ,  even  if 
he  had  chosen,  have  done  any  other  action 
instead,  which  would  have  caused  more 
pleasure  than  the  one  he  did  do  ;  and  that 
a  voluntary  action  is  wrong,  whenever  and 
only  when  the  agent  could,  if  he  had  chosen, 
have  done  some  other  action  instead,  which 
would  have  caused  more  pleasure  than  the 
one  he  did  do.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  our  theory  does  not  assert  that  any 
agent  ever  could  have  chosen  any  other 
action  than  the  one  he  actually  performed. 
It  only  asserts,  that,  in  the  case  of  all  volun¬ 
tary  actions,  he  could  have  acted  differently, 
if  he  had  chosen  :  not  that  he  could  have 
made  the  choice.  It  does  not  assert,  there¬ 
fore,  that  right  and  wrong  depend  upon 
what  he  could  choose.  As  to  this,  it  makes 
no  assertion  at  all :  it  neither  affirms  nor 
denies  that  they  do  so  depend.  It  only 
asserts  that  they  do  depend  upon  what  he 
could  have  done  or  could  do,  if  he  chose. 
In  every  case  of  voluntary  action,  a  man 
could,  if  he  had  so  chosen  just  before,  have 


UTILITARIANISM 


29 


done  at  least  one  other  action  instead-  That 
was  the  definition  of  a  voluntary  action  :  and 
it  seems  quite  certain  that  many  actions  are 
voluntary  in  this  sense.  And  what  our 
theory  asserts  is  that,  where  among  the 
actions  which  he  could  thus  have  done 
instead,  if  he  had  chosen,  there  is  any  one 
which  would  have  caused  more  pleasure 
than  the  one  he  did  do,  then  his  action  is 
always  wrong  ;  but  that  in  all  other  cases 
it  is  right.  This  is  what  our  theory  asserts, 
if  we  remember  that  the  phrase  “  causing 
more  pleasure  5  5  is  to  be  understood  in  the 
inaccurate  sense  explained  above. 

But  it  will  be  convenient,  in  what  follows,  to 
introduce  yet  another  inaccuracy  in  our  state¬ 
ment  of  it.  It  asserts,  we  have  seen,  that  the 
question  whether  a  voluntary  action  is  right 
or  wrong,  depends  upon  the  question  whether, 
among  all  the  other  actions,  which  the 
agent  could  have  done  instead,  if  he  had 
chosen,  there  is  or  is  not  any  which  would 
have  produced  more  pleasure  than  the  one 
he  did  do.  But  it  would  be  highly  incon¬ 
venient,  every  time  we  have  to  mention  the 
theory,  to  use  the  whole  phrase  “  all  the 


30 


ETHICS 


other  actions  which  the  agent  could  have 
done  instead,  if  he  had  chosen.”  I  pro¬ 
pose,  therefore,  instead  to  call  these  simply 
“  all  the  other  actions  which  he  could  have 
done,”  or  “  which  were  possible  to  him.” 
This  is,  of  course,  inaccurate,  since  it  is,  in  a 
sense,  not  true  that  he  could  have  done  them, 
if  he  could  not  have  chosen  them  :  and  our 
theory  does  not  pretend  to  say  whether  he 
ever  could  have  chosen  them.  Moreover, 
even  if  it  is  true  that  he  could  sometimes 
have  chosen  an  action  which  he  did  not 
choose,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  it  is  not 
always  so  ;  it  is  pretty  certain  that  it  is 
sometimes  out  of  his  power  to  choose  an 
action,  which  he  certainly  could  have  done, 
if  he  had  chosen.  It  is  not  true,  therefore, 
that  all  the  actions  which  he  could  have 
done,  if  he  had  chosen,  are  actions  which, 
in  every  sense,  he  could  have  done,  even  if  it 
is  true  that  some  of  them  are.  But  never¬ 
theless  I  propose,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  to 
speak  of  them  all  as  actions  which  he  could 
have  done  ;  and  this  again,  I  think,  need 
lead  to  no  confusion,  if  it  be  clearly  under¬ 
stood  that  I  am  doing  so.  It  must,  then. 


UTILITARIANISM 


31 


be  clearly  understood  that,  when,  in  what 
follows,  I  speak  of  all  the  actions  which  the 
agent  could  have  done,  or  all  those  open  to 
him  under  the  circumstances,  I  shall  mean 
only  all  those  which  he  could  have  done,  if 
he  had  chosen. 

Understanding  this,  then,  we  may  state 
the  first  principle  which  our  theory  lays 
down  quite  briefly  by  saying  :  “A  voluntary 
action  is  fight,  whenever  and  only  when  no 
other  action  possible  to  the  agent  under  the 
circumstances  would  have  caused  more 
pleasure  ;  in  all  other  cases,  it  is  wrong.” 
This  is  its  answer  to  the  questions  :  What 
characteristic  is  there  which  belongs  to  all 
voluntary  actions  which  are  right,  and  only 
to  those  among  them  which  are  right  ?  and 
what  characteristic  is  there  which  belongs  to 
all  those  which  are  wrong,  and  only  to  those 
which  are  wrong  ?  But  it  also  asked  the 
very  same  questions  with  regard  to  two  other 
classes  of  voluntary  actions — those  which 
ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done,  and  those 
which  it  is  our  duty  to  do  or  not  to  do.  And 
its  answer  to  the  question  concerning  these 
conceptions  differs  from  its  answer  to  the  ques- 


32 


ETHICS 


tion  concerning  right  and  wrong  in  a  way, 
which  is,  indeed,  comparatively  unimportant, 
but  which  yet  deserves  to  be  noticed. 

It  may  have  been  observed  that  our  theory 

does  not  assert  that  a  voluntarv  action  is 

•/ 

right  only  where  it  causes  more  pleasure  than 
any  action  which  the  agent  could  have  done 
instead.  It  confines  itself  to  asserting  that, 
in  order  to  be  right,  such  an  action  must  cause 
at  least  as  much  pleasure  as  any  which  the 
agent  could  have  done  instead.  And  it 
confines  itself  in  this  way  for  the  following 
reason.  It  is  obviously  possible,  theoretically 
at  least,  that,  among  the  alternatives  open  to 
an  agent  at  a  given  moment,  there  may  be 
two  or  more  which  would  produce  precisely 
equal  amounts  of  pleasure,  while  all  of  them 
produced  more  than  any  of  the  other  possible 
alternatives  ;  and  in  such  cases,  our  theory 
would  say,  any  one  of  these  actions  would  be 
perfectly  right.  It  recognises,  therefore,  that 
there  may  be  cases  in  which  no  single  one  of 
the  actions  open  to  the  agent  can  be  dis¬ 
tinguished  as  the  right  one  to  do  :  that  in 
many  cases,  on  the  contrary,  several  different 
actions  may  all  be  equally  right  ;  or,  in  other 


UTILITARIANISM 


33 


words,  that  to  say  that  a  man  acted  rightly 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that,  if  he  had  done 
anything  else  instead,  he  would  have  acted 
wrongly.  And  this  is  certainly  in  accordance 
with  common  usage.  We  all  do  constantly 
imply  that  sometimes  when  a  man  was  right 
in  doing  what  he  did,  yet  he  might  have  been 
equally  right,  if  he  had  acted  differently  :  that 
there  may  be  several  different  alternatives 
open  to  him,  none  of  which  can  definitely  be 
said  to  be  wrong.  This  is  why  our  theory 
refuses  to  commit  itself  to  the  view  that  an 
action  is  right  only  where  it  produces  more 
pleasure  than  any  of  the  other  possible  alter¬ 
natives.  For,  if  this  were  so,  then  it  would 
follow  that  no  two  alternatives  could  ever 
be  equally  right  :  some  one  of  them  would 
always  have  to  be  the  right  one,  and  all 
the  rest  wrong.  But  it  is  precisely  in  this 
respect  that  it  holds  that  the  conceptions  of 
“  ought  ”  and  of  44  duty  ”  differ  from  the 
conception  of  what  is  44  right.”  When  we 
say  that  a  man  44  ought  55  to  do  one  par¬ 
ticular  action,  or  that  it  is  his  44  duty  ”  to 
do  it,  we  do  imply  that  it  would  be  wrong 
for  him  to  do  anything  else.  And  hence  our 

B 


34 


ETHICS 


theory  holds  that,  in  the  case  of  “  ought  ” 
and  44  duty  ”  we  may  say,  what  we  could  not 
say  in  the  case  of  44  right,”  namely,  that 
an  action  ought  to  be  done  or  is  our  duty, 
only  where  it  produces  more  pleasure  than 
any  which  we  could  have  done  instead. 

From  this  distinction  several  consequences 
follow.  It  follows  firstly  that  a  voluntary 
action  may  be  44  right  ”  without  being  an 
action  which  we  44  ought  ”  to  do  or  which  it 
is  our  44  duty  ”  to  do.  It  is,  of  course,  always 
our  duty  to  act  rightly,  in  the  sense  that,  if 
we  don’t  act  rightly,  we  shall  always  be 
doing  what  we  ought  not.  It  is,  therefore, 
true,  in  a  sense,  that  whenever  we  act  rightly, 
we  are  always  doing  our  duty  and  doing 
what  we  ought.  But  what  is  not  true  is 
that,  whenever  a  particular  action  is  right, 
it  is  always  our  duty  to  do  that  particular 
action  and  no  other.  This  is  not  true, 
because,  theoretically  at  least,  cases  may 
occur  in  which  some  other  action  would  be 
quite  equally  right,  and  in  such  cases,  we  are 
obviously  under  no  obligation  whatever  to 
do  the  one  rather  than  the  other  :  whichever 
we  do,  we  shall  be  doing  our  duty  and  doing 


UTILITARIANISM 


35 


as  we  ought.  And  it  would  be  rash  to 
affirm  that  such  cases  never  do  practically 
occur.  We  all  commonly  hold  that  they  do  : 
that  very  often  indeed  we  are  under  no  posi¬ 
tive  obligation  to  do  one  action  rather  than 
some  other ;  that  it  does  not  matter  which  we 
do.  We  must,  then,  be  careful  not  to  affirm 
that,  because  it  is  always  our  duty  to  act 
rightly,  therefore  any  particular  action,  which 
is  right,  is  always  also  one  which  it  is  our  duty 
to  do.  This  is  not  so,  because,  even  where 
an  action  is  right,  it  does  not  follow  that  it 
would  be  wrong  to  do  something  else  instead ; 
whereas,  if  an  action  is  a  duty  or  an  action 
wdiich  we  positively  ought  to  do,  it  always 
would  be  wrong  to  do  anything  else  instead. 

The  first  consequence,  then,  which  follows, 
from  this  distinction  between  what  is  right, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  what  ought  to  be  done 
or  is  our  duty,  on  the  other,  is  that  a  volun¬ 
tary  action  may  be  right,  without  being  an 
action  which  we  ought  to  do  or  which  it  is 
our  duty  to  do.  And  from  this  it  follows 
further  that  the  relation  between  “  right  ” 
and  what  ought  to  be  done  is  not  on  a 
par  with  that  between  44  wrong  ”  and  what 

B  2 


36 


ETHICS 


ought  not  to  be  done.  Every  action  which 
is  wrong  is  also  an  action  which  ought  not 
to  be  done  and  which  it  is  our  duty  not  to  do  ; 
and  also,  conversely,  every  action  which 
ought  not  to  be  done,  or  which  it  is  our  duty 
not  to  do,  is  wrong.  These  three  negative 
terms  are  precisely  and  absolutely  coex¬ 
tensive.  To  say  that  an  action  is  or  was 
wrong,  is  to  imply  that  it  ought  not  to  be, 
or  to  have  been,  done  ;  and  the  converse 
implication  also  holds.  But  in  the  case  of 
“  right  ”  and  44  ought,”  only  one  of  the  two 
converse  propositions  holds.  Every  action 
which  ought  to  be  done  or  which  is  our  duty, 
is  certainly  also  right ;  to  say  the  one  thing  of 
any  action  is  to  imply  the  other.  But  here  the 
converse  is  not  true  ;  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  say  that  an  action  is  right  is  not  to  imply 
that  it  ought  to  be  done  or  that  it  is  our  duty : 
an  action  may  be  right,  without  either  of  these 
two  other  things  being  true  of  it.  In  this  re¬ 
spect  the  relation  between  the  positive  con¬ 
ceptions  44  right  ”  and  44  ought  to  be  done  ”  is 
not  on  a  par  with  that  between  the  negative 
conceptions  44  wrong  ”  and 44  ought  not  to  be 
done  ”  The  two  positive  conceptions  are  not 


UTILITARIANISM  37 

coextensive,  whereas  the  two  negative  ones 
are  so. 

And  thirdly  and  finally,  it  also  follows 
that  whereas  every  voluntary  action,  without 
exception,  must  be  either  right  or  wrong, 
it  is  by  no  means  necessarily  true  of  every 
voluntary  action  that  it  either  ought  to  be 
done  or  ought  not  to  be  done, — that  it  either 
is  our  duty  to  do  it,  or  our  duty  not  to  do 
it.  On  the  contrary,  cases  may  occur  quite 
frequently  where  it  is  neither  our  duty  to 
do  a  particular  action,  nor  yet  our  duty 
not  to  do  it.  This  will  occur,  whenever, 
among  the  alternatives  open  to  us,  there  are 
two  or  more,  any  one  of  which  would  be 
equally  right-  And  hence  we  must  not 
suppose  that,  wherever  we  have  a  choice  of 
actions  before  us,  there  is  always  some  one 
among  them  (if  we  could  only  find  out 
which),  which  is  the  one  which  we  ought  to 
do,  while  all  the  rest  are  definitely  wrong. 
It  may  quite  well  be  the  case  that  there  is 
no  one  among  them,  which  we  are  under  a 
positive  obligation  to  do,  although  there  always 
must  be  at  least  one  which  it  would  be  right;,to 
do.  There  will  be  one  which  we  definitely 


38 


ETHICS 


ought  to  do,  in  those  cases  and  those  cases  only, 
where  there  happens  to  be  only  one  which  is 
right  under  the  circumstances — where,  that  is 
to  say,  there  are  not  several  which  would  all 
be  equally  right,  but  some  one  of  the  alterna¬ 
tives  open  to  us  is  the  only  right  thing  to  do. 
And  hence  in  many  cases  we  cannot  definitely 
say  of  a  voluntary  action  either  that  it  was  the 
agent’s  duty  to  do  it  nor  yet  that  it  was  his 
duty  not  to  do  it.  There  may  be  cases  in 
which  none  of  the  alternatives  open  to  us 
is  definitely  prescribed  by  duty. 

To  sum  up,  then  :  The  answers  which  this 
theory  gives  to  its  first  set  of  questions  is  as 
follows.  A  characteristic  which  belongs  to 
all  right  voluntary  actions,  and  only  to  those 
which  are  right,  is,  it  says,  this  :  That  they 
all  cause  at  least  as  much  pleasure  as  any 
action  which  the  agent  could  have  done 
instead  ;  or,  in  other  words,  they  all  produce 
a  maximum  of  pleasure.  A  characteristic 
which  belongs  to  all  voluntary  actions, 
which  ought  to  be  done  or  which  it  is  our 
duty  to  do,  and  only  to  these,  is,  it  says, 
the  slightly  different  one :  That  they  all 
cause  more  pleasure  than  any  which  the 


UTILITARIANISM 


39 


agent  could  have  done  instead  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  among  all  the  possible  alternatives, 
it  is  they  which  produce  the  maximum  of 
pleasure.  And  finally,  a  characteristic 
which  belongs  to  all  voluntary  actions  which 
are  wrong,  or  which  ought  not  to  be  done, 
or  which  it  is  our  duty  not  to  do,  and  which 
belongs  only  to  these,  is,  in  all  three  cases 
the  same,  namely  :  That  they  all  cause  less 
pleasure  than  some  other  action  which  the 
agent  could  have  done  instead.  These  three 
statements  together  constitute  what  I  will 
call  the  first  part  of  the  theory  ;  and,  whether 
we  agree  with  them  or  not,  it  must,  I  think, 
at  least  be  admitted  that  they  are  propositions 
of  a  very  fundamental  nature  and  of  a  very 
wide  range,  so  that  it  would  be  worth  while 
to  know,  if  possible,  whether  they  are  true. 

But  this  first  part  of  the  theory  is  by 
no  means  the  whole  of  it.  There  are  two 
other  parts  of  it,  which  are  at  least  equally 
important ;  and,  before  we  go  on  to  consider 
the  objections  which  may  be  urged  against 
it,  it  will,  I  think,  be  best  to  state  these 
other  parts.  They  may,  however,  conven¬ 
iently  form  the  subject  of  a  new  chapter. 


CHAPTER  II 


utilitarianism  ( concluded ) 

In  the  last  chapter  I  stated  the  first  part 
of  an  ethical  theory,  which  I  chose  out  for 
consideration,  not  because  I  agreed  with  it, 
but  because  it  seemed  to  me  to  bring  out 
particularly  clearly  the  distinction  between 
some  of  the  most  fundamental  subjects  of 
ethical  discussion.  This  first  part  consisted 
in  asserting  that  there  is  a  certain  character¬ 
istic  which  belongs  to  absolutely  all  volun¬ 
tary  actions  which  are  right,  and  only  to 
those  which  are  right ;  another  closely  allied 
characteristic  which  belongs  to  all  voluntary 
actions  which  ought  to  be  done  or  are  duties, 
and  only  to  these ;  a  third  characteristic 
which  belongs  to  all  voluntary  actions  which 
are  wrong,  ought  not  to  be  done,  or  which  it 
is  our  duty  not  to  do,  and  only  to  those 
voluntary  actions  of  which  these  things 

40 


are 


UTILITARIANISM 


41 


true.  And  when  the  theory  makes  these 
assertions  it  means  the  words  44  all  ”  and 
44  only  ”  to  be  understood  quite  strictly. 
That  is  to  say,  it  means  its  propositions 
to  apply  to  absolutely  every  voluntary 
action,  which  ever  has  been  done,  or  ever 
will  be  done,  no  matter  who  did  it,  or  when 
it  was  or  will  be  done  ;  and  not  only  to 
those  which  actually  have  been  or  will  be 
done,  but  also  to  all  those  which  have  been 
or  will  be  possible,  in  a  certain  definite  sense. 

The  sense  in  which  it  means  its  propositions 
to  apply  to  possible,  as  well  as  actual,  voluntary 
actions,  is,  it  must  be  remembered,  only  if 
we  agree  to  give  the  name  44  possible  ”  to 
all  those  actions  which  an  agent  could  have 
done,  if  he  had  chosen,  and  to  those  which* 
in  the  future,  any  agent  will  be  able  to  do, 
if  he  were  to  choose  to  do  them.  Possible 
actions,  in  this  sense,  form  a  perfectly 
definite  group  ;  and  we  do,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  often  make  judgments  as  to  whether 
they  would  have  been  or  would  be  right,  and 
as  to  whether  they  ought  to  have  been  done 
in  the  past,  or  ought  to  be  done  in  the  future. 
We  say,  44  So-and-so  ought  to  have  done  this 


42 


ETHICS 


on  that  occasion,”  or  “It  would  have  been 
perfectly  right  for  him  to  have  done  this,” 
although  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  not  do 
it ;  or  we  say,  “You  ought  to  do  this,”  or 
“  It  will  be  quite  right  for  you  to  do  this,” 
although  it  subsequently  turns  out,  that 
the  action  in  question  is  one  which  you 
do  not  actually  perform  Our  theory  says, 
then,  with  regard  to  all  actions,  which  were 
in  this  sense  possible  in  the  past,  that  they 
would  have  been  right,  if  and  only  if  they 
would  have  produced  a  maximum  of  pleasure  ; 
just  as  it  says  that  all  actual  past  voluntary 
actions  were  right,  if  and  only  if  they  did 
produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure.  And 
similarly,  with  regard  to  all  voluntary  actions 
which  will  be  possible  in  the  future,  it  says 
that  they  will  be  right,  if  and  only  if  they 
would  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure ; 
just  as  it  says  with  regard  to  all  that  will 
actually  be  done,  that  they  will  be  right,  if 
and  only  if  they  do  produce  a  maximum  of 
pleasure. 

Our  theory  does,  then,  even  in  its  first  part, 
deal,  in  a  sense,  with  possible  actions,  as  well 
as  actual  ones.  It  professes  to  tell  us,  not 


UTILITARIANISM 


43 


only  which  among  actual  past  voluntary 
actions  were  right,  but  also  which  among 
those  which  were  possible  would  have  been 
right  if  they  had  been  done  ;  and  not  only 
which  among  the  voluntary  actions  which 
actually  will  be  done  in  the  future,  will  be 
right,  but  also  which  among  those  which 
will  be  possible,  would  be  right,  if  they  were 
to  be  done.  And  in  doing  this,  it  does,  of 
course,  give  us  a  criterion,  or  test,  or  stand¬ 
ard,  by  means  of  which  we  could,  theo¬ 
retically  at  least,  discover  with  regard  to 
absolutely  every  voluntary  action,  whichever 
either  has  been  or  will  be  either  actual  or 
possible,  whether  it  was  or  will  be  right  or 
not.  If  we  want  to  discover  with  regard 
to  a  voluntary  action  which  was  actually 
done  or  was  possible  in  the  past,  whether  it 
was  right  or  would  have  been  right,  we  have 
only  to  ask  :  Could  the  agent,  on  the  occa¬ 
sion  in  question,  have  done  anything  else 
instead,  which  would  have  produced  more 
pleasure  ?  If  he  could,  then  the  action  in 
question  was  or  would  have  been  wrong  ; 
if  he  could  not,  then  it  was  or  would  have 
been  right.  And  similarly,  if  we  want  to 


ETHICS 


discover  with  regard  to  an  action,  which 
we  are  contemplating  in  the  future,  whether 
it  would  be  right  for  us  to  do  it,  we  have  only 
to  ask  :  Could  I  do  anything  else  instead 
which  would  produce  more  pleasure  ?  If 
I  could,  it  will  be  wrong  to  do  the  action  ; 
if  I  could  not,  it  will  be  right.  Our  theory 
does  then,  even  in  its  first  part,  profess  to 
give  us  an  absolutely  universal  criterion  of 
right  and  wrong ;  and  similarly  also  an 
absolutely  universal  criterion  of  what  ought 
or  ought  not  to  be  done 

But  though  it  does  this,  there  is  something 
else  which  it  does  not  do.  It  only  asserts, 
in  this  first  part,  that  the  producing  of  a 
maximum  of  pleasure  is  a  characteristic, 
which  did  and  will  belong,  as  a  matter  of 
fact ,  to  all  right  voluntary  actions  (actual  or 
possible),  and  only  to  right  ones  ;  it  does 
not,  in  its  first  part,  go  on  to  assert  that  it  is 
because  they  possess  this  characteristic  that 
such  actions  are  right.  This  second  assertion 
is  the  first  which  it  goes  on  to  make  in  its 
second  part ;  and  everybody  can  see,  I  think, 
that  there  is  an  important  difference  between 
the  two  assertions. 


UTILITARIANISM 


45 


Many  people  might  be  inclined  to  admit 
that,  whenever  a  man  acts  wrongly,  his 
action  always  does,  on  the  whole,  result 
in  greater  unhappiness  than  would  have 
ensued  if  he  had  acted  differently ;  and 
that  when  he  acts  rightly  this  result  never 
ensues  :  that,  on  the  contrary,  right  action 
always  does  in  the  end  bring  about  at  least 
as  much  happiness,  on  the  whole,  as  the 
agent  could  possibly  have  brought  about  by 
any  other  action  which  was  in  his  power. 
The  proposition  that  wrong  action  always 
does ,  and  (considering  how  the  Universe  is 
constituted)  always  would ,  in  the  long-run, 
lead  to  less  pleasure  than  the  agent  could 
have  brought  about  by  acting  differently, 
and  that  right  action  never  does  and  never 
would  have  this  effect,  is  a  proposition  which 
a  great  many  people  might  be  inclined  to 
accept ;  and  this  is  all  which,  in  its  first  part, 
our  theory  asserts.  But  many  of  those 
who  would  be  inclined  to  assent  to  this 
proposition,  would  feel  great  hesitation  in 
going  on  to  assert  that  this  is  why  actions 
are  right  or  wrong  respectively.  There 
seems  to  be  a  very  important  difference 


46 


ETHICS 


between  the  two  positions.  We  may  hold, 
for  instance,  that  an  act  of  murder,  whenever 
it  is  wrong,  always  does  produce  greater 
unhappiness  than  would  have  followed  if 
the  agent  had  chosen  instead  some  one  of 
the  other  alternatives,  which  he  could  have 
carried  out,  if  he  had  so  chosen  ;  and  we 
may  hold  that  this  is  true  of  all  other  wrong 
actions,  actual  or  possible,  and  never  of  any 
right  ones  :  but  it  seems  a  very  different 
thing  to  hold  that  murder  and  all  other 
wrong  actions  are  wrong,  when  they  are 
wrong,  because  they  have  this  result— 
because  they  produce  less  than  the  possible 
maximum  of  pleasure.  We  may  hold,  that 
is  to  say,  that  the  fact  that  it  does  produce 
or  would  produce  less  than  a  maximum  of 
pleasure  is  absolutely  always  a  sign  that  a 
voluntary  action  is  wrong,  while  the  fact 
that  it  does  produce  or  would  produce  a 
maximum  of  pleasure  is  absolutely  always  a 
sign  that  it  is  right ;  but  this  does  not  seem 
to  commit  us  to  the  very  different  pro¬ 
position  that  these  results,  besides  being 
signs  of  right  and  wrong,  are  also  the 
reasons  why  actions  are  right  when  they 


UTILITARIANISM 


47 


are  right,  and  wrong  when  they  are  wrong. 
Everybody  can  see,  I  think,  that  the  distinc- 
tion  is  important  ;  although  I  think  it  is 
often  overlooked  in  ethical  discussions.  And 
it  is  precisely  this  distinction  which  separates 
what  I  have  called  the  first  part  of  our 
theory,  from  the  first  of  the  assertions  which 
it  goes  on  to  make  in  its  second  part.  In 
its  first  part  it  only  asserts  that  the  produc¬ 
ing  or  not  producing  a  maximum  of  pleasure 
are,  absolutely  universally,  signs  of  right 
and  wrong  in  voluntary  actions  j  in  its 
second  part  it  goes  on  to  assert  that  it  is 
because  they  produce  these  results  that 
voluntary  actions  are  right  when  they  are 
right,  and  wrong  when  they  are  wrong. 

There  is,  then,  plainly  some  important 
difference  between  the  assertion,  which  our 
theory  made  in  its  first  part,  to  the  effect  that 
all  right  voluntary  actions,  and  only  those 
which  are  right,  do,  in  fact ,  produce  a 
maximum  of  pleasure,  and  the  assertion, 
which  it  now  goes  on  to  make,  that  this  is 
why  they  are  right.  And  if  we  ask  why  the 
difference  is  important,  the  answer  is,  so  far 
as  I  can  see,  as  follows.  Namely,  if  we  say 


48 


ETHICS 


that  actions  are  right,  because  they  produce 
a  maximum  of  pleasure,  we  imply  that, 
provided  they  produced  this  result,  they 
would  be  right,  no  matter  what  other  effects 
they  might  produce  as  well.  We  imply,  in 
short,  that  their  rightness  does  not  depend 
at  all  upon  their  other  effects,  but  only  on 
the  quantity  of  pleasure  that  they  produce. 
And  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  merely 
saying  that  the  producing  a  maximum  of 
pleasure  is  always,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  sign 
of  rightness.  It  is  quite  obvious,  that,  in  the 
Universe  as  it  is  actually  constituted,  pleasure 
and  pain  are  by  no  means  the  only  results  of 
any  of  our  actions  :  they  all  produce  immense 
numbers  of  other  results  as  well.  And  so 
long  as  we  merely  assert  that  the  producing 
a  maximum  of  pleasure  is  a  sign  of  rightness, 
we  leave  open  the  possibility  that  it  is  so 
only  because  this  result  does  always,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  happen  to  coincide  with  the 
production  of  other  results;  but  that  it  is 
partly  upon  these  other  results  that  the 
rightness  of  the  action  depends.  But  so  soon 
as  we  assert  that  actions  are  right,  because 
they  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure,  we  cut 


UTILITARIANISM 


49 


away  this  possibility  ;  we  assert  that  actions 
which  produced  such  a  maximum,  would  be 
right,  even  if  they  did  not  produce  any  of  the 
other  effects,  wdiich,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
always  do  produce.  And  this,  I  think,  is 
the  chief  reason  why  many  persons  who  would 
be  inclined  to  assent  to  the  first  proposition, 
would  hesitate  to  assent  to  the  second. 

It  is,  for  instance,  commonly  held  that 
some  pleasures  are  higher  or  better  than 
others,  even  though  they  may  not  be  more 
pleasant ;  and  that  where  we  have  a  choice 
between  procuring  for  ourselves  or  others  a 
higher  or  a  lower  pleasure,  it  is  generally 
right  to  prefer  the  former,  even  though  it 
may  perhaps  be  less  pleasant.  And,  of 
course,  even  those  who  hold  that  actions  are 
only  right  because  of  the  quantity  of  pleasure 
they  produce,  and  not  at  all  because  of  the 
quality  of  these  pleasures,  might  quite  con¬ 
sistently  hold  that  it  is  as  a  matter  of  fact 
generally  right  to  prefer  higher  pleasures  to 
lower  ones,  even  though  they  may  be  less 
pleasant.  They  might  hold  that  this  is  the 
case,  on  the  ground  that  higher  pleasures, 
even  when  less  pleasant  in  themselves,  do. 


50 


ETHICS 


if  we  take  into  account  all  their  further  effects, 
tend  to  produce  more  pleasure  on  the  whole 
than  lower  ones.  There  is  a  good  deal  to  be 
said  for  the  view  that  this  does  actually 
happen,  as  the  Universe  is  actually  con¬ 
stituted  ;  and  that  hence  an  action  which 
causes  a  higher  pleasure  to  be  enjoyed 
instead  of  a  lower  one,  will  in  general  cause 
more  pleasure  in  its  total  effects,  though 
it  may  cause  less  in  its  immediate  effects. 
And  this  is  why  those  who  hold  that  higher 
pleasures  are  in  general  to  be  preferred  to 
lower  ones,  may  nevertheless  admit  that 
mere  quantity  of  pleasure  is  always,  in  fact, 
a  correct  sign  or  criterion  of  the  rightness  of 
an  action. 

But  those  who  hold  that  actions  are  only 
right,  because  of  the  quantity  of  pleasure 
they  produce,  must  hold  also  that,  if  higher 
pleasures  did  not,  in  their  total  effects,  produce 
more  pleasure  than  lower  ones,  then  there 
would  be  no  reason  whatever  for  preferring 
them,  provided  they  were  not  themselves  more 
pleasant.  If  the  sole  effect  of  one  action 
were  to  be  the  enjoyment  of  a  certain  amount 
of  the  most  bestial  or  idiotic  pleasure,  and 


UTILITARIANISM 


51 


the  sole  effect  of  another  were  to  be  the 
enjoyment  of  a  much  more  refined  one,  then 
they  must  hold  that  there  would  be  no 
reason  whatever  for  preferring  the  latter  to 
the  former,  provided  only  that  the  mere 
quantity  of  pleasure  enjoyed  in  each  case 
were  the  same.  And  if  the  bestial  pleasure 
were  ever  so  slightly  more  pleasant  than  the 
other,  then  they  must  say  it  would  be  our 
positive  duty  to  do  the  action  which  would 
bring  it  about  rather  than  the  other.  This 
is  a  conclusion  which  does  follow  from  the 
assertion  that  actions  are  right  because  they 
produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure,  and  which 
does  not  follow  from  the  mere  assertion  that 
the  producing  a  maximum  of  pleasure  is 
always,  in  fact,  a  sign  of  rightness.  And  it  is 
for  this,  and  similar  reasons,  that  it  is  im¬ 
portant  to  distinguish  the  two  propositions. 

To  many  persons  it  may  seem  clear  that  it 
would  be  our  duty  to  prefer  some  pleasures 
to  others,  even  if  they  did  not  entail  a  greater 
quantity  of  pleasure  ;  and  hence  that  though 
actions  which  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure 
are  perhaps,  in  fact ,  always  right,  they  are 
not  right  because  of  this,  but  only  because 


52 


ETHICS 


the  producing  of  this  result  does  in  fact 
happen  to  coincide  with  the  producing  of 
other  results.  They  would  say  that  though 
perhaps,  in  fact,  actual  cases  never  occur  in 
which  it  is  or  would  be  wrong  to  do  an  action, 
which  produces  a  maximum  of  pleasure,  it 
is  easy  to  imagine  cases  in  which  it  would 
be  wrong.  If,  for  instance,  we  had  to  choose 
between  creating  a  Universe,  in  which  all  the 
inhabitants  were  capable  only  of  the  lowest 
sensual  pleasures,  and  another  in  which  they 
were  capable  of  the  highest  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  ones,  it  would,  they  would  say, 
plainly  be  our  duty  to  create  the  latter 
rather  than  the  former,  even  though  the  mere 
quantity  of  pleasure  enjoyed  in  it  were 
rather  less  than  in  the  former,  and  still  more 
so  if  the  quantities  were  equal  Or,  to  put 
it  shortly,  they  would  say  that  a  world  of 
men  is  preferable  to  a  world  of  pigs,  even 
though  the  pigs  might  enjoy  as  much  or 
more  pleasure  than  a  world  of  men.  And 
this  is  what  our  theory  goes  on  to  deny,  when 
it  says  that  voluntary  actions  are  right, 
because  they  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure. 
It  implies,  by  saying  this,  that  actions  which 


UTILITARIANISM 


53 


produced  a  maximum  of  pleasure  would 
always  be  right,  no  matter  what  their  effects, 
in  other  respects,  might  be.  And  hence 
that  it  would  be  right  to  create  a  world  in 
which  there  was  no  intelligence  and  none  of 
the  higher  emotions,  rather  than  one  in  which 
these  were  present  in  the  highest  degree, 
provided  only  that  the  mere  quantity  of 
pleasure  enjoyed  in  the  former  were  ever  so 
little  greater  than  that  enjoyed  in  the  latter. 

Our  theory  asserts,  then,  in  its  second 
part,  that  voluntary  actions  are  right  when 
they  are  right,  because  they  produce  a 
maximum  of  pleasure  ;  and  in  asserting  this 
it  takes  a  great  step  beyond  what  it  asserted 
in  its  first  part,  since  it  now  implies  that  an 
action  which  produced  a  maximum  of  plea¬ 
sure  always  would  be  right,  no  matter  how 
its  results,  in  other  respects,  might  compare 
with  those  of  the  other  possible  alternatives. 

But  it  might  be  held  that,  even  so,  it  does 
not  imply  that  this  would  be  so  absolutely  un¬ 
conditionally .  It  might  beheld  that  though, 
in  the  Universe  as  actually  constituted, 
actions  are  right  because  they  produce  a 
maximum  of  pleasure,  and  hence  their  right- 


54 


ETHICS 


ness  does  not  at  all  depend  upon  their  other 
effects,  yet  this  is  only  so  for  some  such 
reason  as  that,  in  this  Universe,  all  conscious 
beings  do  actually  happen  to  desire  pleasure  ; 
but  that,  if  we  could  imagine  a  Universe,  in 
which  pleasure  was  not  desired,  then,  in  such 
a  Universe,  actions  would  not  be  right  because 
they  produced  a  maximum  of  pleasure  ;  and 
hence  that  we  cannot  lay  it  down  absolutely 
unconditionally  that  in  all  conceivable 
Universes  any  voluntary  action  would  be 
right  whenever  and  only  when  it  produced  a 
maximum  of  pleasure.  For  some  such  reason 
as  this,  it  might  be  held  that  we  must  dis¬ 
tinguish  between  the  mere  assertion  that 
voluntary  actions  are  right,  when  they  are 
right,  because  they  produce  a  maximum  of 
pleasure,  and  the  further  assertion  that  this 
would  be  so  in  all  conceivable  circumstances 
and  in  any  conceivable  Universe.  Those 
who  assert  the  former  are  by  no  means 
necessarily  bound  to  assert  the  latter  also.  To 
assert  the  latter  is  to  take  a  still  further  step. 

But  the  theory  I  wish  to  state  does,  in 
fact,  take  this  further  step.  It  asserts  not 
only  that,  in  the  Universe  as  it  is,  voluntary 


UTILITARIANISM 


55 


actions  are  right  because  they  produce  a 
maximum  of  pleasure,  but  also  that  this 
would  be  so,  under  any  conceivable  circum¬ 
stances  :  that  if  any  conceivable  being,  in 
any  conceivable  Universe,  were  faced  with  a 
choice  between  an  action  which  would  cause 
more  pleasure  and  one  which  would  cause 
less,  it  would  always  be  his  duty  to  choose 
the  former  rather  than  the  latter,  no  matter 
what  the  respects  might  be  in  which  his 
Universe  differed  from  ours.  It  may,  at 
first  sight,  seem  unduly  bold  to  assert  that 
any  ethical  truth  can  be  absolutely  un¬ 
conditional  in  this  sense.  But  many  philo¬ 
sophers  have  held  that  some  fundamental 
ethical  principles  certainly  are  thus  un¬ 
conditional.  And  a  little  reflection  will  suffice 
to  show  that  the  view  that  they  may  be  so 
is  at  all  events  not  absurd.  We  have  many 
instances  of  other  truths,  which  seem  quite 
plainly  to  be  of  this  nature.  It  seems  quite 
clear,  for  instance,  that  it  is  not  only  true 
that  twice  two  do  make  four,  in  the  Universe 
as  it  actually  is,  but  that  they  necessarily 
would  make  four,  in  any  conceivable  Universe, 
no  matter  how  much  it  might  differ  from  this 


56 


ETHICS 


one  in  other  respects.  And  our  theory  is 
only  asserting  that  the  connection  which  it 
believes  to  hold  between  rightness  and  the 
production  of  a  maximum  of  pleasure  is,  in 
this  respect,  similar  to  the  connection  asserted 
to  hold  between  the  number  two  and  the 
number  four,  when  we  say  that  twice  two 
are  four.  It  asserts  that,  if  any  being  what¬ 
ever,  in  any  circumstances  whatever,  had  to 
choose  between  two  actions,  one  of  which 
would  produce  more  pleasure  than  the  other, 
it  always  would  be  his  duty  to  choose  the 
former  rather  than  the  latter :  that  this 
is  absolutely  unconditionally  true.  This  as¬ 
sertion  obviously  goes  very  much  further, 
both  than  the  assertion  which  it  made  in  its 
first  part,  to  the  effect  that  the  producing  a 
maximum  of  pleasure  is  a  sign  of  rightness 
in  the  case  of  all  voluntary  actions,  that  ever 
have  been  or  will  be  actual  or  possible,  and 
also  than  the  assertion,  that  in  the  Universe, 
as  it  is  actually  constituted,  actions  are  right, 
when  they  are  right,  because  they  produce 
a  maximum  of  pleasure.  But  bold  as  the 
assertion  may  seem,  it  is,  at  all  events,  not 
impossible  that  we  should  know  it  to  be  true. 


UTILITARIANISM 


57 


Our  theory  asserts,  therefore,  in  its  second 
part  :  That,  if  we  had  to  choose  between 
two  actions,  one  of  which  would  have  as  its 
sole  or  total  effects,  an  effect  or  set  of  effects, 
which  we  may  call  A,  while  the  other  would 
have  as  its  sole  or  total  effects,  an  effect  or 
set  of  effects,  which  we  may  call  B,  then, 
if  A  contained  more  pleasure  than  B,  it 
always  would  be  our  duty  to  choose  the 
action  which  caused  A  rather  than  that  which 
caused  B.  This,  it  asserts,  would  be  abso¬ 
lutely  always  true,  no  matter  what  A  and  B 
might  be  like  in  other  respects.  And  to  assert 
this  is  (it  now  goes  on  to  say)  equivalent  to 
asserting  that  any  effect  or  set  of  effects 
which  contains  more  pleasure  is  always 
intrinsically  better  than  one  which  contains 
less. 

By  calling  one  effect  or  set  of  effects  in¬ 
trinsically  better  than  another  it  means  that 
it  is  better  in  itself,  quite  apart  from  any 
accompaniments  or  further  effects  which  it 
may  have.  That  is  to  say  :  To  assert  of 
any  one  thing,  A,  that  it  is  intrinsically  better 
than  another,  B,  is  to  assert  that  if  A  existed 
quite  alone,  without  any  accompaniments 


58 


ETHICS 


or  effects  whatever — if,  in  short,  A  con¬ 
stituted  the  whole  Universe,  it  would  be 
better  that  such  a  Universe  should  exist, 
than  that  a  Universe  which  consisted  solely 
of  B  should  exist  instead.  In  order  to  dis¬ 
cover  whether  any  one  thing  is  intrinsically 
better  than  another,  we  have  always  thus 
to  consider  whether  it  would  be  better  that 
the  one  should  exist  quite  alone  than  that 
the  other  should  exist  quite  alone .  No 
one  thing  or  set  of  things,  A,  ever  can  be 
intrinsically  better  than  another,  B,  unless 
it  would  be  better  that  A  should  exist  quite 
alone  than  that  B  should  exist  quite  alone. 
Our  theory  asserts,  therefore,  that,  wherever 
it  is  true  that  it  would  be  our  duty  to  choose 
A  rather  than  B,  if  A  and  B  were  to  be  the 
sole  effects  of  a  pair  of  actions  between  which 
we  had  to  choose,  there  it  is  always  also  true 
that  it  would  be  better  that  A  shouid  exist 
quite  alone  than  that  B  should  exist  quite 
alone.  And  it  asserts  also,  conversely,  that 
wherever  it  is  true  that  any  one  thing  or 
set  of  things,  A,  is  intrinsically  better  than 
another,  B,  there  it  would  always  also  be  our 
duty  to  choose  an  action  of  which  A  would 


UTILITARIANISM 


59 


be  the  sole  effect  rather  than  one  of  which 
B  would  be  the  sole  effect,  if  we  had  to  choose 
between  them.  But  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  holds  that  it  never  could  be  our  duty  to 
choose  one  action  rather  than  another,  unless 
the  total  effects  of  the  one  contained  more 
pleasure  than  that  of  the  other,  it  follows 
that,  according  to  it,  no  effect  or  set  of 
effects,  A,  can  possibly  be  intrinsically  better 
than  another,  B,  unless  it  contains  more 
pleasure.  It  holds,  therefore,  not  only  that 
any  one  effect  or  set  of  effects,  which  contains 
more  pleasure,  is  always  intrinsically  better 
than  one  which  contains  less,  but  also  that 
no  effect  or  set  of  effects  can  be  intrinsically 
better  than  another  unless  it  contains  more 
pleasure. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  this  theory  assigns 
a  quite  unique  position  to  pleasure  and  pain 
in  two  respects ;  or  possibly  only  in  one,  since 
it  is  just  possible  that  the  two  propositions 
which  it  makes  about  them  are  not  merely 
equivalent,  but  absolutely  identical — that  is 
to  say,  are  merely  different  ways  of  express¬ 
ing  exactly  the  same  idea.  The  two  pro¬ 
positions  are  these.  (1)  That  if  any  one  had 


60 


ETHICS 


to  choose  between  two  actions,  one  of  which 
would,  in  its  total  effects,  cause  more 
pleasure  than  the  other,  it  always  would  be 
his  duty  to  choose  the  former  ;  and  that  it 
never  could  be  any  one’s  duty  to  choose 
one  action  rather  than  another,  unless 
its  total  effects  contained  more  pleasure. 
(2)  That  any  Universe,  or  part  of  a  Universe, 
which  contains  more  pleasure,  is  always 
intrinsically  better  than  one  which  contains 
less  ;  and  that  nothing  can  be  intrinsically 
better  than  anything  else,  unless  it  contains 
more  pleasure.  It  does  seem  to  be  just 
possible  that  these  two  propositions  are 
merely  two  different  ways  of  expressing 
exactly  the  same  idea.  The  question  whether 
they  are  so  or  not  simply  depends  upon  the 
question  whether,  when  we  say,  44  It  would 
be  better  that  A  should  exist  quite  alone 
than  that  B  should  exist  quite  alone,”  we 
are  or  are  not  saying  exactly  the  same  thing, 
as  when  we  say,  44  Supposing  we  had  to 
choose  between  an  action  of  which  A  would 
be  the  sole  effect,  and  one  of  which  B 
would  be  the  sole  effect,  it  would  be  our 
duty  to  choose  the  former  rather  than  the 


UTILITARIANISM 


61 


latter.”  And  it  certainly  does  seem,  at  first 
sight,  as  if  the  two  propositions  were  not 
identical ;  as  if  we  should  not  be  saying 
exactly  the  same  thing  in  asserting  the  one, 
as  in  asserting  the  other.  But,  even  if  they 
are  not  identical,  our  theory  asserts  that 
they  are  certainly  equivalent :  that,  whenever 
the  one  is  true,  the  other  is  certainly  also 
true.  And,  if  they  are  not  identical,  this 
assertion  of  equivalence  amounts  to  the 
very  important  proposition  that :  An  action 
is  right,  only  if  no  action,  which  the  agent 
could  have  done  instead,  would  have  had 
intrinsically  better  results  ;  while  an  action 
is  wrong,  only  if  the  agent  could  have  done 
some  other  action  instead  whose  total  results 
would  have  been  intrinsically  better.  It 
certainly  seems  as  if  this  proposition  were  not 
a  mere  tautology.  And,  if  so,  then  we  must 
admit  that  our  theory  assigns  a  unique 
position  to  pleasure  and  pain  in  two  respects, 
and  not  in  one  only.  It  asserts,  first  of  all, 
that  they  have  a  unique  relation  to  right 
and  wrong  ;  and  secondly,  that  they  have  a 
unique  relation  to  intrinsic  value. 

Our  theory  asserts,  then,  that  any  whole 


62 


ETHICS 


which  contains  a  greater  amount  of  pleasure, 
is  always  intrinsically  better  than  one  which 
contains  a  smaller  amount,  no  matter  what 
the  two  may  be  like  in  other  respects  ;  and 
that  no  whole  can  be  intrinsically  better 
than  another  unless  it  contains  more  pleasure 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  throughout 
this  discussion,  we  have,  for  the  sake  of 
convenience,  been  using  the  phrase  44  con¬ 
tains  more  pleasure”  in  an  inaccurate 
sense.  I  explained  that  I  should  say  of  one 
whole,  A,  that  it  contained  more  pleasure 
than  another,  B,  whenever  A  and  B  were 
related  to  one  another  in  either  of  the  five 
following  ways  :  namely  (1)  when  A  and  B 
both  contain  an  excess  of  pleasure  over  pain, 
but  A  contains  a  greater  excess  than  B  ;  (2) 
when  A  contains  an  excess  of  pleasure  over 
pain,  while  B  contains  no  excess  either  of 
pleasure  over  pain  or  of  pain  over  pleasure  ; 
(3)  when  A  contains  an  excess  of  pleasure 
over  pain,  while  B  contains  an  excess  of 
pain  over  pleasure,  (4)  when  A  contains  no 
excess  either  of  pleasure  over  pain  or  of 
pain  over  pleasure,  while  B  does  contain 
an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure ;  and  (5) 


UTILITARIANISM 


63 


when  both  A  and  B  contain  an  excess  of 
pain  over  pleasure,  but  A  contains  a  smaller 
excess  than  B.  Whenever  in  stating  this 
theory,  I  have  spoken  of  one  whole,  or 
effect,  or  set  of  effects,  A,  as  containing  more 
pleasure  than  another,  B,  I  have  always 
meant  merely  that  A  was  related  to  B  in 
one  or  other  of  these  five  ways.  And  so  here, 
when  our  theory  says  that  every  whole 
which  contains  a  greater  amount  of  pleasure 
is  always  intrinsically  better  than  one  which 
contains  less,  and  that  nothing  can  be 
intrinsically  better  than  anything  else  unless 
it  contains  more  pleasure,  this  must  be 
understood  to  mean  that  any  whole,  A, 
which  stands  to  another,  B,  in  any  one  of 
these  five  relations,  is  always  intrinsically 
better  than  B,  and  that  no  one  thing  can 
be  intrinsically  better  than  another,  unless 
it  stands  to  it  in  one  or  other  of  these  five 
relations.  And  it  becomes  important  to 
remember  this,  when  we  go  on  to  take 
account  of  another  fact. 

It  is  plain  that  when  we  talk  of  one  thing 
being  “  better  ”  than  another  we  may  mean 
any  one  of  five  different  things.  We  may 


64 


ETHICS 


mean  either  (1)  that  while  both  are  positively 
good,  the  first  is  better  ;  or  (2)  that  while 
the  first  is  positively  good,  the  second  is 
neither  good  nor  bad,  but  indifferent ;  or 
(3)  that  while  the  first  is  positively  good,  the 
second  is  positively  bad  ;  or  (4)  that  while 
the  first  is  indifferent,  the  second  is  positively 
bad  ;  or  (5)  that  while  both  are  positively 
bad,  the  first  is  less  bad  than  the  second. 
We  should,  in  common  life,  say  that  one 
thing  was  “  better  ”  than  another,  whenever 
it  stood  to  that  other  in  any  one  of  these 
five  relations.  Or,  in  other  words,  we  hold 
that  among  things  which  stand  to  one 
another  in  the  relation  of  better  and  worse, 
some  are  positively  good,  others  positively 
bad.,  and  others  neither  good  nor  bad,  but 
indifferent.  And  our  theory  holds  that  this 
is,  in  fact,  the  case,  with  things  which  have 
a  place  in  the  scale  of  intrinsic  value  :  some 
of  them  are  intrinsically  good,  others  intrin¬ 
sically  bad,  and  others  indifferent.  And  it 
would  say  that  a  whole  is  intrinsically  good, 
whenever  and  only  when  it  contains  an 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain  ;  intrinsically 
bad,  whenever  and  only  when  it  contains 


UTILITARIANISM 


65 


an  excess  of  pain  over  pleasure  ;  and  in¬ 
trinsically  indifferent,  whenever  and  only 
when  it  contains  neither. 

In  addition,  therefore,  to  laying  down 
precise  rules  as  to  what  things  are  intrinsically 
better  or  worse  than  others,  our  theory  also 
lays  down  equally  precise  ones  as  to  what 
things  are  intrinsically  good  and  bad  and 
indifferent.  By  saying  that  a  thing  is  in¬ 
trinsically  good  it  means  that  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  that  the  thing  in  question  should 
exist,  even  if  it  existed  quite  alone,  without 
any  further  accompaniments  or  effects  what¬ 
ever.  By  saying  that  it  is  intrinsically  bad, 
it  means  that  it  would  be  a  bad  thing  or  an 
evil  that  it  should  exist,  even  if  it  existed 
quite  alone,  without  any  further  accompani¬ 
ments  or  effects  whatever.  And  by  saying 
that  it  is  intrinsically  indifferent,  it  means 
that,  if  it  existed  quite  alone,  its  existence 
would  be  neither  a  good  nor  an  evil  in  any 
degree  whatever.  And  just  as  the  concep¬ 
tions  4  4  intrinsically  better  ”  and  44  intrin¬ 
sically  worse  ”  are  connected  in  a  perfectly 
precise  manner  with  the  conceptions  44  right  ” 

and  44  wrong,”  so,  it  maintains,  are  these 
c 


66 


ETHICS 


other  conceptions  also.  To  say  of  anything, 
A,  that  it  is  “  intrinsically  good,”  is  equivalent 
to  saying  that,  if  we  had  to  choose  between 
an  action  of  which  A  would  be  the  sole  or 
total  effect,  and  an  action,  which  would 
have  absolutely  no  effects  at  all,  it  would 
always  be  our  duty  to  choose  the  former,  and 
wrong  to  choose  the  latter.  And  similarly 
to  say  of  anything,  A,  that  it  is  “  intrinsically 
bad,”  is  equivalent  to  saying  that,  if  we  had 
to  choose  between  an  action  of  which  A 
would  be  the  sole  effect,  and  an  action  which 
would  have  absolutely  no  effects  at  all,  it 
would  always  be  our  duty  to  choose  the 
latter  and  wrong  to  choose  the  former.  And 
finally,  to  say  of  anything,  A,  that  it  is 
“intrinsically  indifferent,”  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that,  if  we  had  to  choose  between  an 
action,  of  which  A  would  be  the  sole  effect, 
and  an  action  which  would  have  absolutely 
no  effects  at  all,  it  would  not  matter  which 
we  chose  :  either  choice  would  be  equally 
right. 

To  sum  up,  then,  we  may  say  that,  in  its 
second  part,  our  theory  lays  down  three 
principles.  It  asserts  (1)  that  anything 


UTILITARIANISM 


67 


whatever,  whether  it  be  a  single  effect,  or  a 
whole  set  of  effects,  or  a  whole  Universe,  is 
intrinsically  good ,  whenever  and  only  when 
it  either  is  or  contains  an  excess  of  pleasure 
over  pain  ;  that  anything  whatever  is  in¬ 
trinsically  bad,  whenever  and  only  when  it 
either  is  or  contains  an  excess  of  pain  over 
pleasure ;  and  that  all  other  things,  no 
matter  what  their  nature  may  be,  are  in¬ 
trinsically  indifferent.  It  asserts  (2)  that 
any  one  thing,  whether  it  be  a  single  effect, 
or  a  whole  set  of  effects,  or  a  whole  Universe, 
is  intrinsically  better  than  another,  whenever 
and  only  when  the  two  are  related  to  one 
another  in  one  or  other  of  the  five  following 
ways :  namely,  when  either  (a)  while  both 
are  intrinsically  good,  the  second  is  not  so 
good  as  the  first ;  or  (b)  while  the  first  is 
intrinsically  good,  the  second  is  intrinsically 
indifferent ;  or  (c)  while  the  first  is  intrin¬ 
sically  good,  the  second  is  intrinsically  bad  ; 
or  (d)  while  the  first  is  intrinsically  indifferent, 
the  second  is  intrinsically  bad  ;  or  (e)  while 
both  are  intrinsically  bad,  the  first  is  not  so 
bad  as  the  second.  And  it  asserts  (3)  that, 
if  we  had  to  choose  between  two  actions 


68 


ETHICS 


one  of  which  would  have  intrinsically  better 
total  effects  than  the  other,  it  always  would 
be  our  duty  to  choose  the  former,  and  wrong 
to  choose  the  latter  ;  and  that  no  action 
ever  can  be  right  if  we  could  have  done 
anything  else  instead  which  would  have  had 
intrinsically  better  total  effects,  nor  wrong, 
unless  we  could  have  done  something  else 
instead  which  would  have  had  intrinsicallv 
better  total  effects.  From  these  three 
principles  taken  together,  the  whole  theory 
follows.  And  whether  it  be  true  or  false, 
it  is,  I  think,  at  least  a  perfectly  clear  and 
intelligible  theory.  Whether  it  is  or  is  not 
of  any  practical  importance,  is,  indeed, 
another  question.  But,  even  if  it  were  of 
none  whatever,  it  certainly  lays  down  pro¬ 
positions  of  so  fundamental  and  so  far- 
reaching  a  character,  that  it  seems  worth 
while  to  consider  whether  they  are  true  or 
false.  There  remain,  I  think,  only  two 
points  which  should  be  noticed  with  regard 
to  it,  before  we  go  on  to  consider  the  prin¬ 
cipal  objections  which  may  be  urged 
against  it. 

It  should  be  noticed,  first,  that,  though 


UTILITARIANISM 


69 


this  theory  asserts  that  nothing  is  intrinsically 
good,  unless  it  is  or  contains  an  excess  of 
pleasure  over  pain,  it  is  very  far  from  asserting 
that  nothing  is  good,  unless  it  fulfils  this 
condition.  By  saying  that  a  thing  is  in¬ 
trinsically  good ,  it  means,  as  has  been  ex¬ 
plained,  that  the  existence  of  the  thing  in 
question  would  be  a  good,  even  if  it  existed 
quite  alone,  without  any  accompaniments 
or  effects  whatever  ;  and  it  is  quite  plain 
that  when  we  call  things  “  good 55  we  by 
no  means  always  mean  this  :  we  by  no  means 
always  mean  that  they  would  be  good,  even 
if  they  existed  quite  alone.  Very  often,  for 
instance,  when  we  Say  that  a  thing  is  “  good,” 
we  mean  that  it  is  good  because  of  its  effects  ; 
and  we  should  not  for  a  moment  maintain 
that  it  would  be  good,  even  if  it  had  no 
effects  at  all.  We  are,  for  instance,  familiar 
with  the  idea  that  it  is  sometimes  a  good 
thing  for  people  to  suffer  pain  ;  and  yet  we 
should  be  very  loth  to  maintain  that  in  all 
such  cases  their  suffering  would  be  a  good 
thing,  even  if  nothing  were  gained  by  it — 
if  it  had  no  further  effects.  We  do,  in 
general,  maintain  that  suffering  is  good, 


70 


ETHICS 


only  where  and  because  it  has  further  good 
effects.  And  similarly  with  many  other 
things.  Many  things,  therefore,  which  are 
not  “  intrinsically  ”  good,  may  nevertheless 
be  “  good  ”  in  some  one  or  other  of  the 
senses  in  which  we  use  that  highly  ambiguous 
word.  And  hence  our  theory  can  and  would 
quite  consistently  maintain  that,  while 
nothing  is  intrinsically  good  except  pleasure 
or  wholes  which  contain  pleasure,  many 
other  things  really  are  “  good  ” ;  and 
similarly  that,  while  nothing  is  intrinsically 
bad  except  pain  or  wholes  which  contain 
it,  yet  many  other  things  are  really  “  bad.” 
It  would,  for  instance,  maintain  that  it  is 
always  a  good  thing  to  act  rightly,  and  a 
bad  thing  to  act  wrongly  ;  although  it  would 
say  at  the  same  time  that,  since  actions, 
strictly  speaking,  do  not  contain  either 
pleasure  or  pain,  but  are  only  accompanied 
by  or  causes  of  them,  a  right  action  is  never 
intrinsically  good,  nor  a  wrong  one  intrinsically 
bad.  And  similarly  it  would  maintain  that 
it  is  perfectly  true  that  some  men  are  “  good,” 
and  others  “  bad,”  and  some  better  than 
others ;  although  no  man  can  strictly  be 


UTILITARIANISM 


71 


said  to  contain  either  pleasure  or  pain,  and 
hence  none  can  be  either  intrinsically  good 
or  intrinsically  bad  or  intrinsically  better 
than  any  other.  It  would  even  maintain 
(and  this  also  it  can  do  quite  consistently), 
that  events  which  are  intrinsically  good  are 
nevertheless  very  often  bad,  and  intrinsically 
bad  ones  good.  It  would,  for  instance,  say 
that  it  is  often  a  very  bad  thing  for  a  man 
to  enjoy  a  particular  pleasure  on  a  particular 
occasion,  although  the  event,  which  consists 
in  his  enjoying  it,  may  be  intrinsically  good, 
since  it  contains  an  excess  of  pleasure  over 
pain.  It  may  often  be  a  very  bad  thing  that 
such  an  event  should  happen,  because  it  causes 
the  man  himself  or  other  beings  to  have  less 
pleasure  or  more  pain  in  the  future,  than  they 
would  otherwise  have  had.  And  for  similar 
reasons  it  may  often  be  a  very  good  thing 
that  an  intrinsically  bad  event  should  happen. 

It  is  important  to  remember  all  this,  because 
otherwise  the  theory  may  appear  much  more 
paradoxical  than  it  really  is.  It  may,  for 
instance,  appear,  at  first  sight,  as  if  it  denied 
all  value  to  anything  except  pleasure  and 
wholes  which  contain  it — a  view  which 


72 


ETHICS 


would  be  extremely  paradoxical  if  it  were 
held.  But  it  does  not  do  this.  It  does  not 
deny  all  value  to  other  things,  but  only  all 
intrinsic  value — a  very  different  thing.  It 
only  says  that  none  of  them  would  have 
any  value  if  they  existed  quite  alone.  But, 
of  course,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  them 
do  exist  quite  alone,  and  hence  it  may  quite 
consistently  allow  that,  as  it  is,  many  of 
them  do  have  very  great  value.  Concerning 
kinds  of  value,  other  than  intrinsic  value, 
it  does  not  profess  to  lay  down  any  general 
rules  at  all.  And  its  reason  for  confining 
itself  to  intrinsic  value  is  because  it  holds 
that  this  and  this  alone  is  related  to  right 
and  wrong  in  the  perfectly  definite  manner 
explained  above.  Whenever  an  action  is 
right,  it  is  right  only  if  and  because  the 
total  effects  of  no  action,  which  the  agent 
could  have  done  instead,  would  have  had 
more  intrinsic  value ;  and  whenever  an 
action  is  wrong,  it  is  wrong  only  if  and 
because  the  total  effects  of  some  other 
action,  which  the  agent  could  have  done 
instead,  would  have  had  more  intrinsic 
value.  This  proposition,  which  is  true  of 


UTILITARIANISM 


73 


intrinsic  value,  is  not,  it  holds,  true  of  value 
of  any  other  kind. 

And  a  second  point  which  should  be 
noticed  about  this  theory  is  the  following. 
It  is  often  represented  as  asserting  that 
pleasure  is  the  only  thing  which  is  ultimately 
good  or  desirable,  and  pain  the  only  thing 
which  is  ultimately  bad  or  undesirable  ;  or 
as  asserting  that  pleasure  is  the  only  thing 
which  is  good  for  its  own  sake ,  and  pain 
the  only  thing  which  is  bad  for  its  own  sake. 
And  there  is,  I  think,  a  sense  in  which  it 
does  assert  this.  But  these  expressions  are 
not  commonly  carefully  defined  ;  and  it  is 
worth  noticing  that,  if  our  theory  does  assert 
these  propositions,  the  expressions  “  ultim¬ 
ately  good”  or  “good  for  its  own  sake ” 
must  be  understood  in  a  different  sense  from 
that  which  has  been  assigned  above  to  the 
expression  “  intrinsically  good.”  We  must 
not  take  “  ultimately  good  ”  or  “  good  for 
its  own  sake  ”  to  be  synonyms  for  “  intrin¬ 
sically  good.”  For  our  theory  most  emphatic¬ 
ally  does  not  assert  that  pleasure  is  the  only 
thing  intrinsically  good,  and  pain  the  only 
thing  intrinsically  evil.  On  the  contrary. 


74 


ETHICS 


it  asserts  that  any  whole  which  contains  an 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain  is  intrinsically 
good,  no  matter  how  much  else  it  may 
contain  besides  ;  and  similarly  that  any 
whole  which  contains  an  excess  of  pain 
over  pleasure  is  intrinsically  bad.  This  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  conception  expressed 
by  “  ultimately  good  ”  or  44  good  for  its  own 
sake ,”  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  expressed 
by  44  intrinsically  good,”  on  the  other,  is 
not  commonly  made  ;  and  yet  obviously  we 
must  make  it,  if  we  are  to  say  that  our 
theory  does  assert  that  pleasure  is  the  only 
ultimate  good,  and  pain  the  only  ultimate 
evil.  The  two  conceptions,  if  used  in  this 
way,  have  one  important  point  in  common, 
namely,  that  both  of  them  will  only  apply 
to  things  whose  existence  would  be  good, 
even  if  they  existed  quite  alone.  Whether 
we  assert  that  a  thing  is  44  ultimately  good  ” 
or  4  4  good  for  its  own  sake  ”  or  44  intrinsically 
good,”  we  are  always  asserting  that  it  would 
be  good,  even  if  it  existed  quite  alone.  But 
the  two  conceptions  differ  in  respect  of  the 
fact  that,  whereas  a  whole  which  is  44  in¬ 
trinsically  good  ”  may  contain  parts  which 


UTILITARIANISM 


75 


are  not  intrinsically  good,  i.e.  would  not  be 
good,  if  they  existed  quite  alone  ;  anything 
which  is  44  ultimately  good  ”  or  44  good  for 
its  own  sake  5 5  can  contain  no  such  parts. 
This,  I  think,  is  the  meaning  which  we  must 
assign  to  the  expressions  44  ultimately  good  ” 
or  44  good  for  its  own  sake,”  if  we  are  to 
say  that  our  theory  asserts  pleasure  to  be 
the  only  thing  44  ultimately  good  ”  or  44  good 
for  its  own  sake.”  We  may,  in  short,  divide 
intrinsically  good  things  into  two  classes  : 
namely  (1)  those  which,  while  as  wholes 
they  are  intrinsically  good,  nevertheless 
contain  some  parts  which  are  not  intrin¬ 
sically  good  ;  and  (2)  those,  which  either 
have  no  parts  at  all,  or,  if  they  have  any, 
have  none  but  what  are  themselves  intrin¬ 
sically  good.  And  we  may  thus,  if  we 
please,  confine  the  terms  44  ultimately  good  ” 
or  44  good  for  their  own  sakes  ”  to  things 
which  belong  to  the  second  of  these  two 
classes.  We  may,  of  course,  make  a  pre¬ 
cisely  similar  distinction  between  two  classes 
of  intrinsically  bad  things.  And  it  is  only 
if  we  do  this  that  our  theory  can  be  truly 
said  to  assert  that  nothing  is  44  ultimately 


76 


ETHICS 


good  ”  or  “  good  for  its  own  sake,”  except 
pleasure  ;  and  nothing  “  ultimately  bad  ” 
or  “  bad  for  its  own  sake,”  except  pain. 

Such  is  the  ethical  theory  which  I  have 
chosen  to  state,  because  it  seems  to  me 
particularly  simple,  and  hence  to  bring  out 
particularly  clearly  some  of  the  main  questions 
which  have  formed  the  subject  of  ethical 
discussion. 

What  is  specially  important  is  to  distinguish 
the  question,  which  it  professes  to  answer  in 
its  first  part,  from  the  much  more  radical 
questions,  which  it  professes  to  answer  in  its 
second.  In  its  first  part,  it  only  professes 
to  answer  the  question  :  What  characteristic 
is  there  which  doses  actually,  as  a  matter  of 
fact9  belong  to  all  right  voluntary  actions, 
which  ever  have  been  or  will  be  done  in  this 
world  ?  While,  in  its  second  part,  it  professes 
to  answer  the  much  more  fundamental 
question  :  What  characteristic  is  there  which 
would  belong  to  absolutely  any  voluntary 
action,  which  was  right,  in  any  conceivable 
Universe,  and  under  any  conceivable  circum¬ 
stances  ?  These  two  questions  are  obviously 
extremely  different,  and  by  the  theory  I  have 


UTILITARIANISM 


JT-r 


77 


stated  I  mean  a  theory  which  does  profess 
to  give  an  answer  to  both. 

Whether  this  theory  has  ever  been  held 
in  exactly  the  form  in  which  I  have  stated 
it,  I  should  not  like  to  say.  But  many 
people  have  certainly  held  something  very 
like  it ;  and  it  seems  to  be  what  is  often 
meant  by  the  familiar  name  44  Utilitarianism,” 
which  is  the  reason  why  I  have  chosen  this 
name  as  the  title  of  these  two  chapters. 
It  must  not,  however,  be  assumed  that  any¬ 
body  who  talks  about  44  Utilitarianism  ” 
always  means  precisely  this  theory  in  all  its 
details.  On  the  contrary,  many  even  of 
those  who  call  themselves  Utilitarians  would 
object  to  some  of  its  most  fundamental 
propositions.  One  of  the  difficulties  which 
occurs  in  ethical  discussions  is  that  no  single 
name,  which  has  ever  been  proposed  as  the 
name  of  an  ethical  theory,  has  any  absolutely 
fixed  significance.  On  the  contrary,  every 
name  may  be,  and  often  is,  used  as  a  name 
for  several  different  theories,  which  may 
differ  from  one  another  in  very  important 
respects.  Hence,  whenever  anybody  uses 
such  a  name,  you  can  never  trust  to  the 


78 


ETHICS 


name  alone,  but  must  always  look  carefully 
to  see  exactly  what  he  means  by  it.  For 
this  reason  I  do  not  propose,  in  what  follows, 
to  give  any  name  at  all  to  this  theory  which 
I  have  stated,  but  will  refer  to  it  simply 
as  the  theory  stated  in  these  first  two 
chapters. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS 

Against  the  theory,  which  has  been  stated 
in  the  last  two  chapters,  an  enormous  variety 
of  different  objections  may  be  urged  ;  and  I 
cannot  hope  to  deal  with  nearly  all  of  them. 
What  I  want  to  do  is  to  choose  out  those, 
which  seem  to  me  to  be  the  most  important, 
because  they  are  the  most  apt  to  be  strongly 
felt,  and  because  they  concern  extremely 
general  questions  of  principle.  It  seems  to 
me  that  some  of  these  objections  are  well 
founded,  and  that  others  are  not,  according 
as  they  are  directed  against  different  parts 
of  what  our  theory  asserts.  And  I  propose, 
therefore,  to  split  up  the  theory  into  parts, 
and  to  consider  separately  the  chief  objec¬ 
tions  which  might  be  urged  against  each  of 
these  different  parts. 

And  we  may  begin  with  an  extremely 

79 


80 


ETHICS 


fundamental  point.  Our  theory  plainly  im¬ 
plied  two  things.  It  implied  (1)  that,  if 
it  is  true  at  any  one  time  that  a  par¬ 
ticular  voluntary  action  is  right,  it  must 
always  be  true  of  that  particular  action  that 
it  was  right :  or,  in  other  words,  that  an 
action  cannot  change  from  right  to  wrong, 
or  from  wrong  to  right ;  that  it  cannot 
possibly  be  true  of  the  very  same  action  that 
it  is  right  at  one  time  and  wrong  at  another. 
And  it  implied  also  (2)  that  the  same  action 
cannot  possibly  at  the  same  time  be  both  right 
and  wrong.  It  plainly  implied  both  these 
two  things  because  it  asserted  that  a  volun¬ 
tary  action  can  only  be  right,  if  it  produces 
a  maximum  of  pleasure,  and  can  only  be 
wrong,  if  it  produces  less  than  a  maximum. 
And  obviously,  if  it  is  once  true  of  any  action 
that  it  did  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure, 
it  must  always  be  true  of  it  that  it  did  ;  and 
obviously  also  it  cannot  be  true  at  one  and 
the  same  time  of  one  and  the  same  action 
both  that  it  did  produce  a  maximum  of 
pleasure  and  also  that  it  produced  less  than 
a  maximum.  Our  theory  implied,  therefore, 
that  any  particular  action  cannot  possibly 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


81 


be  both  right  and  wrong  either  at  the  same 
time  or  at  different  times.  At  any  particu¬ 
lar  time  it  must  be  either  right  or  wrong, 
and,  whichever  it  is  at  any  one  time,  it  will 
be  the  same  at  all  times. 

It  must  be  carefully  noticed,  however, 
that  our  theory  only  implies  that  this  is  true 
of  any  particular  voluntary  action,  which  we 
may  choose  to  consider  :  it  does  not  imply 
that  the  same  is  ever  true  of  a  class  of  actions. 
That  is  to  say,  it  implies  that  if, \  at  the  time 
when  Brutus  murdered  Caesar,  this  action  of 
his  was  right,  then,  it  must  be  equally  true 
now,  and  will  always  be  true,  that  this  par¬ 
ticular  action  of  Brutus  was  right,  and  it  never 
can  have  been  and  never  will  be  true  that 
it  was  wrong.  Brutus5  action  on  this  particu¬ 
lar  occasion  cannot,  it  says,  have  been  both 
right  and  wrong  ;  and  if  it  was  once  true  that 
it  was  right,  then  it  must  always  be  true  that 
it  was  right ;  or  if  it  was  once  true  that  it  was 
wrong,  it  must  always  be  true  that  it  was 
wrong.  And  similarly  with  every  other 
absolutely  particular  action,  which  actually 
was  done  or  might  have  been  done  by  a 
particular  man  on  a  particular  occasion.  Of 


82 


ETHICS 


every  such  action,  our  theory  says,  it  is  true 
that  it  cannot  at  any  time  have  been  both 
right  and  wrong  ;  and  also  that,  whichever 
of  these  two  predicates  it  possessed  at  any 
one  time,  it  must  possess  the  same  at  all  times. 
But  it  does  not  imply  that  the  same  is  true  of 
any  particular  class  of  actions —  of  murder, 
for  instance.  It  does  not  assert  that  if  one 
murder,  committed  at  one  time,  was  wrong, 
then  any  other  murder,  committed  at  the 
same  time,  must  also  have  been  wrong ;  nor 
that  if  one  murder,  committed  at  one  time, 
is  wrong,  any  other  murder  committed  at 
any  other  time  must  be  wrong.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  though  it  does  not  directly  imply 
that  this  is  false,  yet  it  does  imply  that  it  is 
unlikely  that  any  particular  class  of  actions 
will  absolutely  always  be  right  or  absolutely 
always  wrong.  For,  it  holds,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  the  question  whether  an  action  is 
right  or  wrong  depends  upon  its  effects  ;  and 
the  question  what  effects  an  action  will  pro¬ 
duce  depends,  of  course,  not  only  upon  the 
class  to  which  it  belongs,  but  also  on  the 
particular  circumstances  in  which  it  is  done. 
While,  in  one  set  of  circumstances,  a  particu- 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


83 


lar  kind  of  action  may  produce  good  effects, 
in  other  circumstances  a  precisely  similar 
action  may  produce  bad  ones.  And,  since 
the  circumstances  are  always  changing,  it  is 
extremely  unlikely  (though  not  impossible), 
that  actions  of  any  particular  class,  such  as 
murder  or  adultery,  should  absolutely  always 
be  right  or  absolutely  always  wrong.  Our 
theory,  therefore,  does  not  imply  that,  if  an 
action  of  a  particular  class  is  right  once,  every 
other  action  of  the  same  class  must  always  be 
right :  on  the  contrary,  it  follows  from  its 
view  that  this  is  unlikely  to  be  true.  What 
it  does  imply,  is  that  if  we  consider  any  par¬ 
ticular  instance  of  any  class,  that  particular 
instance  cannot  ever  be  both  right  and  wrong, 
and  if  once  right,  must  always  be  right.  And 
it  is  extremely  important  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  these  two  different  questions, 
because  they  are  liable  to  be  confused.  When 
we  ask  whether  the  same  action  can  be  both 
right  and  wrong  we  may  mean  two  entirely 
different  things  by  this  question.  We  may 
merely  mean  to  ask  :  Can  the  same  hind  of 
action  be  right  at  one  time  and  wrong  at 
another,  or  right  and  wrong  simultaneously  ? 


84 


ETHICS 


And  to  this  question  our  theory  would  be  in¬ 
clined  to  answer  :  It  can.  Or  else  by  the 
same  action,  we  may  mean  not  merely  the 
same  kind  of  action,  but  some  single  abso¬ 
lutely  particular  action,  which  was  or  might 
have  been  performed  by  a  definite  person  on 
a  definite  occasion.  And  it  is  to  this  question 
that  our  theory  replies  :  It  is  absolutely  im¬ 
possible  that  any  one  single,  absolutely 
particular  action  can  ever  be  both  right  and 
wrong,  either  at  the  same  time  or  at  different 
times. 

Now  this  question  as  to  whether  one  and 
the  same  action  can  ever  be  both  right  and 
wrong  at  the  same  time,  or  can  ever  be 
right  at  one  time  and  wrong  at  another,  is, 
I  think,  obviously,  an  extremely  fundamental 
one.  If  we  decide  it  in  the  affirmative, 
then  a  great  many  of  the  questions  which 
have  been  most  discussed  by  ethical  writers 
are  at  once  put  out  of  court.  It  must,  for 
instance,  be  idle  to  discuss  what  characteristic 
there  is,  which  universally  distinguishes  right 
actions  from  wrong  ones,  if  this  view  be  true. 
If  one  and  the  same  action  can  be  both 
right  and  wrong,  then  obviously  there  can 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


85 


be  no  such  characteristic — there  can  be  no 
characteristic  which  always  belongs  to  right 
actions,  and  never  to  wrong  ones  :  since,  if 
so  much  as  one  single  action  is  both  right 
and  wrong,  this  action  must  possess  any 
characteristic  (if  there  is  one)  which  always 
belongs  to  right  actions,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  since  the  action  is  also  wrong,  this 
characteristic  cannot  be  one  which  never 
belongs  to  wrong  actions.  Before,  therefore, 
we  enter  on  any  discussions  as  to  what 
characteristic  there  is  which  always  belongs 
to  right  actions  and  never  to  wrong  ones, 
it  is  extremely  important  that  we  should 
satisfy  ourselves,  if  we  can,  that  one  and 
the  same  action  cannot  be  both  right  and 
wrong,  either  at  the  same  time  or  at  different 
times.  For,  if  this  is  not  the  case,  then  all 
such  discussions  must  be  absolutely  futile. 
I  propose,  therefore,  first  of  all,  to  raise  the 
simple  issue  t  Can  one  and  the  same  action 
be  both  right  and  wrong,  either  at  the  same 
time  or  at  different  times  ?  Is  the  theory 
stated  in  the  last  two  chapters  in  the  right, 
so  far  as  it  merely  asserts  that  this  cannot 

be  the  case  ? 


86 


ETHICS 


Now  I  think  that  most  of  those  who  hold, 
as  this  theory  does,  that  one  and  the  same 
action  cannot  be  both  right  and  wrong, 
simply  assume  that  this  is  the  case,  without 
trying  to  prove  it.  It  is,  indeed,  quite 
common  to  find  the  mere  fact  that  a  theory 
implies  the  contrary,  used  as  a  conclusive 
argument  against  that  theory.  It  is  argued  : 
Since  this  theory  implies  that  one  and  the 
same  action  can  be  both  right  and  wrong, 
and  since  it  is  evident  that  this  cannot  be 
so,  therefore  the  theory  in  question  must  be 
false.  And,  for  my  part,  it  seems  to  me 
that  such  a  method  of  argument  is  perfectly 
justified.  It  does  seem  to  me  to  be  evident 
that  no  voluntary  action  can  be  both  right 
and  wrong  ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  this  can 
be  proved  by  reference  to  any  principle 
which  is  more  certain  than  it  is  itself.  If, 
therefore,  anybody  asserts  that  the  contrary 
is  evident  to  him — that  it  is  evident  to  him 
that  one  and  the  same  action  can  be  both 
right  and  wrong,  I  do  not  see  how  it  can 
be  proved  that  he  is  wrong.  If  the  question 
is  reduced  to  these  ultimate  terms,  it  must, 

I  think,  simply  be  left  to  the  reader’s  inspec- 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


87 


tion.  Like  all  ultimate  questions,  it  is 
incapable  of  strict  proof  either  way.  But 
most  of  those  who  hold  that  an  action  can 
be  both  right  and  wrong  are,  I  think,  in  fact 
influenced  by  certain  considerations,  which 
do  admit  of  argument.  They  hold  certain 
views,  from  which  this  conclusion  follows  ; 
and  it  is  only  because  they  hold  these  views, 
that  they  adopt  the  conclusion.  There  are, 
I  think,  two  views,  in  particular,  which  are 
very  commonly  held  and  which  are  specially 
influential  in  leading  people  to  adopt  it. 
And  it  is  very  important  that  we  should 
consider  these  two  views  carefully,  both 
because  they  lead  to  this  conclusion  and  for 
other  reasons. 

The  first  of  them  is  as  follows.  It  may  be 
held,  namely,  that,  whenever  we  assert  that 
an  action  or  class  of  actions  is  right  or  wrong, 
we  must  be  merely  making  an  assertion 
about  somebody’s  feelings  towards  the  action 
or  class  of  actions  in  question.  This  is  a 
view  which  seems  to  be  very  commonly  held 
in  some  form  or  other  \  and  one  chief  reason 
why  it  is  held  is,  I  think,  that  many  people 
seem  to  find  an  extreme  difficulty  in  seeing 


88 


ETHICS 


what  else  we  possibly  can  mean  by  the  words 
“  right  5 5  and  4 4  wrong,”  except  that  some 
mind  or  set  of  minds  has  some  feeling,  or 
some  other  mental  attitude,  towards  the 
actions  to  which  we  apply  these  predicates. 
In  some  of  its  forms  this  view  does  not  lead 
to  the  consequence  that  one  and  the  same 
action  may  be  both  right  and  wrong  ;  and 
with  these  forms  we  are  not  concerned  just 
at  present.  But  some  of  the  forms  in  which 
it  may  be  held  do  directly  lead  to  this  con¬ 
sequence  ;  and  where  people  do  hold  that 
one  and  the  same  action  may  be  both  right 
and  wrong,  it  is,  I  think,  very  generally 
because  they  hold  this  view  in  one  of  these 
forms.  There  are  several  different  forms  of 
it  which  do  lead  to  this  consequence,  and 
they  are  apt,  I  think,  not  to  be  clearly 
distinguished  from  one  another.  People  are 
apt  to  assume  that  in  our  judgments  of  right 
and  wrong  we  must  be  making  an  assertion 
about  the  feelings  of  some  man  or  some  group 
of  men,  without  trying  definitely  to  make 
up  their  minds  as  to  who  the  man  or  group 
of  men  can  be  about  whose  feelings  we  are 
making  it.  So  soon  as  this  question  is 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS  89 

fairly  faced,  it  becomes  plain,  I  think,  that 
there  are  serious  objections  to  any  possible 

alternative. 

To  begin  with,  it  may  be  held  that  when¬ 
ever  any  man  asserts  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  what  he  is  asserting  is  merely  that 
he  himself  has  some  particular  feeling  towards 
the  action  in  question.  Each  of  us,  according 
to  this  view,  is  merely  making  an  assertion 
about  his  own  feelings  :  when  I  assert  that 
an  action  is  right,  the  whole  of  what  I  mean 
is  merely  that  I  have  some  particular  feeling 
towards  the  action;  and  when  you  make 
the  same  assertion,  the  whole  of  what  you 
mean  is  merely  that  you  have  the  feeling 
in  question  towards  the  action.  Different 
views  may,  of  course,  be  taken  as  to  what 
the  feeling  is  which  we  are  supposed  to 
assert  that  we  have.  Some  people  might 
say  that,  when  we  call  an  action  right,  we 
are  merely  asserting  that  we  like  it  or  are 
pleased  with  it ;  and  that  when  we  call  one 
wrong,  we  are  merely  asserting  that  we 
dislike  it  or  are  displeased  with  it.  Others 
might  say,  more  plausibly,  that  it  is  not 
mere  liking  and  dislike  that  we  express  by 


90 


ETHICS 


these  judgments,  but  a  peculiar  sort  of 
liking  and  dislike,  which  might  perhaps  be 
called  a  feeling  of  moral  approval  and  of  moral 
disapproval .  Others,  again,  might,  perhaps, 
say  that  it  is  not  a  pair  of  opposite  feelings 
which  are  involved,  but  merely  the  presence 
or  absence  of  one  particular  feeling  :  that, 
for  instance,  when  we  call  an  action  wrong, 
we  merely  mean  to  say  that  we  have  towards 
it  a  feeling  of  disapproval,  and  that  by 
calling  it  right,  we  mean  to  say,  not  that  we 
have  towards  it  a  positive  feeling  of  approval, 
but  merely  that  we  have  not  got  towards 
it  the  feeling  of  disapproval.  But  whatever 
view  be  taken  as  to  the  precise  nature  of  the 
feelings  about  which  we  are  supposed  to  be 
making  a  judgment,  any  view  which  holds 
that,  when  we  call  an  action  right  or  wrong, 
each  of  us  is  always  merely  asserting  that  he 
himself  has  or  has  not  some  particular  feeling 
towards  it,  does,  I  think,  inevitably  lead  to 
the  same  conclusion — namely,  that  quite 
often  one  and  the  same  action  is  both  right 
and  wrong  ;  and  any  such  view  is  also  ex¬ 
posed  to  one  and  the  same  fatal  objection. 

The  argument  which  shows  that  such 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


91 


views  inevitably  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 
one  and  the  same  action  is  quite  often  both 
right  and  wrong,  consists  of  two  steps,  each 
of  which  deserves  to  be  separately  emphasised. 

The  first  is  this.  If,  whenever  I  judge  an 
action  to  be  right,  I  am  merely  judging  that 
I  myself  have  a  particular  feeling  towards 
it,  then  it  plainly  follows  that,  provided 
I  really  have  the  feeling  in  question,  my 
judgment  is  true,  and  therefore  the  action 
in  question  really  is  right.  And  what  is  true 
of  me,  in  this  respect,  will  also  be  true  of 
any  other  man.  No  matter  what  we  suppose 
the  feeling  to  be,  it  must  be  true  that,  when¬ 
ever  and  so  long  as  any  man  really  has 
towards  any  action  the  feeling  in  question, 
then,  and  for  just  so  long,  the  action  in 
question  really  is  right.  For  what  our 
theory  supposes  is  that,  when  a  man  judges 
an  action  to  be  right,  he  is  merely  judging 
that  he  has  this  feeling  towards  it  ;  and 
hence,  whenever  he  really  has  it,  his  judg¬ 
ment  must  be  true,  and  the  action  really 
must  be  right.  '  It  strictly  follows,  therefore, 
from  this  theory  that  whenever  any  man 
whatever  really  has  a  particular  feeling 


92 


ETHICS 


towards  an  action,  the  action  really  is  right  ; 
and  whenever  any  man  whatever  really  has 
another  particular  feeling  towards  an  action, 
the  action  really  is  wrong.  Or,  if  we  take 
the  view  that  it  is  not  a  pair  of  feelings 
which  are  in  question,  but  merely  the  presence 
or  absence  of  a  single  feeling — for  instance, 
the  feeling  of  moral  disapproval  ;  then, 
what  follows  is,  that  whenever  any  man 
whatever  fails  to  have  this  feeling  towards 
an  action,  the  action  really  is  right,  and 
whenever  any  man  whatever  has  got  the 
feeling,  the  action  really  is  wrong.  What¬ 
ever  view  we  take  as  to  what  the  feelings 
are,  and  whether  we  suppose  that  it  is  a 
pair  of  feelings  or  merely  the  presence  and 
absence  of  a  single  one,  the  consequence 
follows  that  the  presence  (or  absence)  of  the 
feeling  in  question  in  any  man  whatever  is 
sufficient  to  ensure  that  an  action  is  right 
or  wrong,  as  the  case  may  be.  And  it  is 
important  to  insist  that  this  consequence 
does  follow,  because  it  is  not,  I  think,  always 
clearly  seen.  It  seems  sometimes  to  be 
vaguely  held  that  when  a  man  judges  an 
action  to  be  right,  he  is  merely  judging  that 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


93 


he  has  a  particular  feeling  towards  it,  but 
that  yet,  though  he  really  has  this  feeling, 
the  action  is  not  necessarily  really  right. 
But  obviously  this  is  impossible.  If  the 
whole  of  what  we  mean  to  assert,  when  we 
say  that  an  action  is  right,  is  merely  that 
we  have  a  particular  feeling  towards  it,  then 
plainly,  provided  only  we  really  have  this 
feeling,  the  action  must  really  be  right. 

It  follows,  therefore,  from  any  view  of  this 
type,  that,  whenever  any  man  has  (or  has 
not)  some  particular  feeling  towards  an 
action,  the  action  is  right ;  and  also  that, 
whenever  any  man  has  (or  has  not)  some  par¬ 
ticular  feeling  towards  an  action,  the  action 
is  wrong.  And  now,  if  we  take  into  account 
a  second  fact,  it  seems  plainly  to  follow 
that,  if  this  be  so,  one  and  the  same  action 
must  quite  often  be  both  right  and  wrong. 

This  second  fact  is  merely  the  observed 
fact,  which  it  seems  difficult  to  deny,  that, 
whatever  pair  of  feelings  or  single  feeling  we 
take,  cases  do  occur  in  which  two  different 
men  have  opposite  feelings  towards  the  same 
action,  and  in  which,  while  one  has  a  given 
feeling  towards  an  action,  the  other  has  not 


94 


ETHICS 


got  it.  It  might,  perhaps,  be  thought  that  it 
is  possible  to  find  some  pair  of  feelings  or  some 
single  feeling,  in  the  case  of  which  this  rule 
does  not  hold  :  that,  for  instance,  no  man  ever 
really  feels  moral  approval  towards  an  action, 
towards  which  another  feels  moral  dis¬ 
approval.  This  is  a  view  which  people  are 
apt  to  take,  because,  where  we  have  a  strong 
feeling  of  moral  disapproval  towards  an 
action,  we  may  find  it  very  difficult  to 
believe  that  any  other  man  really  has  a 
feeling  of  moral  approval  towards  the  same 
action,  or  even  that  he  regards  it  without 
some  degree  of  moral  disapproval.  And 
there  is  some  excuse  for  this  view  in  the 
fact,  that  when  a  man  says  that  an  action 
is  right,  and  even  though  he  sincerely 
believes  it  to  be  so,  it  may  nevertheless  be 
the  case  that  he  really  feels  towards  it  some 
degree  of  moral  disapproval.  That  is  to 
say,  though  it  is  certain  that  men’s  opinions 
as  to  what  is  right  and  wrong  often  differ, 
itgis  not  certain  that  their  feelings  always 
differ  when  their  opinions  do.  But  still, 
if  we  look  at  the  extraordinary  differences 
that  there  have  been  and  are  between 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


95 


different  races  of  mankind,  and  in  different 
stages  of  society,  in  respect  of  the  classes 
of  actions  which  have  been  regarded  as  right 
and  wrong,  it  is,  I  think,  scarcely  possible 
to  doubt  that,  in  some  societies,  actions 
have  been  regarded  with  actual  feelings  of 
positive  moral  approval,  towards  which  many 
of  us  would  feel  the  strongest  disapproval. 
And  if  this  is  so  with  regard  to  classes  of 
actions,  it  can  hardly  fail  to  be  sometimes 
the  case  with  regard  to  particular  actions. 
We  may,  for  instance,  read  of  a  particular 
action,  which  excites  in  us  a  strong  feeling 
of  moral  disapproval  ;  and  yet  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  sometimes  this  very  action 
will  have  been  regarded  by  some  of  the 
men  among  whom  it  was  done,  without  any 
feeling  of  disapproval  whatever,  and  even 
with  a  feeling  of  positive  approval.  But, 
if  this  be  so,  then,  on  the  view  we  are  con¬ 
sidering,  it  will  absolutely  follow  that  whereas 
it  was  true  then ,  when  it  was  done,  that 
that  action  was  right,  it  is  true  now  that  the 
very  same  action  was  wrong. 

And,  once  we  admit  that  there  have  been 
such  real  differences  of  feeling  between  men  in 


96 


ETHICS 


different  stages  of  society,  we  must  also,  I 
think,  admit  that  such  differences  do  quite 
often  exist  even  among  contemporaries,  when 
they  are  members  of  very  different  societies  ; 
so  that  one  and  the  same  action  may  quite 
often  be  at  the  same  time  both  right  and 
wrong.  And,  having  admitted  this,  we  ought, 
I  think,  to  go  still  further.  Once  we  are 
convinced  that  real  differences  of  feeling 
towards  certain  classes  of  actions,  and  not 
merely  differences  of  opinion,  do  exist  between 
men  in  different  states  of  society,  the  prob¬ 
ability  is  that  when  two  men  in  the  same 
state  of  society  differ  in  opinion  as  to  whether 
an  action  is  right  or  wrong,  this  difference 
of  opinion,  though  it  by  no  means  always 
indicates  a  corresponding  difference  of  feeling, 
yet  sometimes  really  is  accompanied  by 
such  a  difference  :  so  that  two  members  of 
the  same  society  may  really  sometimes  have 
opposite  feelings  towards  one  and  the  same 
action,  whatever  feeling  we  take.  And  finally, 
we  must  admit,  I  think,  that  even  one  and 
the  same  individual  may  experience  such  a 
change  of  feeling  towards  one  and  the  same 
action.  A  man  certainly  does  often  come 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


97 


to  change  his  opinion  as  to  whether  a  par¬ 
ticular  action  was  right  or  wrong  ;  and  we 
must,  I  think,  admit  that,  sometimes  at 
least,  his  feelings  towards  it  completely 
change  as  well  ;  so  that,  for  instance,  an 
action,  which  he  formerly  regarded  with 
moral  disapproval,  he  may  now  regard  with 
positive  moral  approval,  and  vice  versa.  So 
that,  for  this  reason  alone,  and  quite  apart 
from  differences  of  feeling  between  different 
men,  we  shall  have  to  admit,  according  to  our 
theory,  that  it  is  often  now  true  of  an  action 
that  it  was  right,  although  it  was  formerly 
true  of  the  same  action  that  it  was  wrong. 

This  fact,  on  which  I  have  been  insist¬ 
ing,  that  different  men  do  feel  differently 
towards  the  same  action,  and  that  even 
the  same  man  may  feel  differently  to¬ 
wards  it  at  different  times,  is,  of  course, 
a  mere  commonplace  ;  and  my  only  excuse 
for  insisting  on  it  is  that  it  might  possibly 
be  thought  that  some  one  feeling  or  pair 
of  feelings,  and  those  the  very  ones  which 
it  is  most  plausible  to  regard  as  the  ones 
about  which  we  are  making  an  assertion 
in  our  judgments  of  right  and  wrong,  are 

D 


98 


ETHICS 


exceptions  to  the  rule.  I  think,  however, 
we  must  recognise  that  no  feeling  or  pair 
of  feelings,  which  could  possibly  be  main¬ 
tained  to  be  the  ones  with  which  our  judg¬ 
ments  of  right  and  wrong  are  concerned, 
does,  in  fact,  form  an  exception.  Whatever 
feeling  you  take,  it  seems  hardly  possible 
to  doubt  that  instances  have  actually 
occurred,  in  which,  while  one  man  really 
had  the  feeling  in  question  towards  a  given 
action,  other  men  have  not  had  it,  and  some 
of  them  have  even  had  an  opposite  one, 
towards  the  same  action.  There  may,  per¬ 
haps,  be  some  classes  of  actions  in  the  case 
of  which  this  has  never  occurred  ;  but  what 
seems  certain  is  that  there  are  some  classes, 
with  which  it  has  occurred  :  and,  if  there 
are  any  at  all,  that  is  sufficient  to  establish 
our  conclusion.  For  if  this  is  so,  and  if, 
when  a  man  asserts  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  he  is  always  merely  asserting  that 
he  himself  has  some  particular  feeling  towards 
it,  then  it  absolutely  follows  that  one  and 
the  same  action  has  sometimes  been  both 
right  and  wrong — right  at  one  time  and 
wrong  at  another,  or  both  simultaneously. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


99 


And  I  think  that  some  argument  of  this 
sort  is  the  chief  reason  why  many  people 
are  apt  to  hold  that  one  and  the  same  action 
may  be  both  right  and  wrong.  They  are 
much  impressed  by  the  fact  that  different 
men  do  feel  quite  differently  towards  the 
same  classes  of  action,  and,  holding  also 
that,  when  we  judge  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  we  must  be  merely  making  a 
judgment  about  somebody’s  feelings,  it  seems 
impossible  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  one 
and  the  same  action  often  is  both  right  and 
wrong.  This  conclusion  does  not,  indeed, 
necessarily  follow  from  these  two  doctrines 
taken  together.  Whether  it  follows  or  not, 
depends  on  the  precise  form  in  which  we 
hold  the  latter  doctrine — upon  who  the 
somebody  is  about  whose  feelings  we  are 
making  the  assertion.  But  it  does  follow 
from  the  precise  form  of  this  doctrine  which 
we  are  now  considering — the  form  which 
asserts  that  each  man  is  merely  making  an 
assertion  about  his  own  feelings.  And,  since 
this  is  one  of  the  most  plausible  forms  in 
which  the  doctrine  can  be  held,  it  is  extremely 
important  to  consider,  whether  it  can  be  true 


100 


ETHICS 


in  this  form.  Can  it  possibly  be  the  case, 
then,  that,  when  we  judge  an  action  to  be 
right  or  wrong,  each  of  us  is  only  asserting 
that  he  himself  has  some  particular  feeling 
towards  it  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  an  absolutely 
fatal  objection  to  the  view  that  this  is  the 
case.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
question  is  merely  a  question  of  fact ;  a 
question  as  to  the  actual  analysis  of  our 
moral  judgments — as  to  what  it  is  that 
actually  happens,  when  we  think  an  action 
to  be  right  or  wrong.  And  if  we  remember 
that  it  is  thus  merely  a  question  as  to  what 
we  actually  think,  when  we  think  an  action 
to  be  right  or  wrong, — neither  more  nor  less 
than  this, — it  can,  I  think,  be  clearly  seen 
that  the  view  we  are  considering  is  incon¬ 
sistent  with  plain  facts.  This  is  so,  because 
it  involves  a  curious  consequence,  which 
those  who  hold  it  do  not  always  seem  to 
realise  that  it  involves ;  and  this  conse¬ 
quence  is,  I  think,  plainly  not  in  accordance 
with  the  facts.  The  consequence  is  this. 
If,  when  one  man  says,  “  This  action  is  right,” 
and  another  answers,  “  No,  it  is  not  right,” 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


101 


each  of  them  is  always  merely  making  an 
assertion  about  his  own  feelings,  it  plainly 
follows  that  there  is  never  really  any  differ¬ 
ence  of  opinion  between  them  :  the  one  of 
them  is  never  really  contradicting  what  the 
other  is  asserting.  They  are  no  more  con¬ 
tradicting  one  another  than  if,  when  one 
had  said,  44 1  like  sugar,”  the  other  had 
answered,  44 1  don’t  like  sugar.”  In  such  a 
case,  there  is,  of  course,  no  conflict  of  opinion* 
no  contradiction  of  one  by  the  other  :  for 
it  may  perfectly  well  be  the  case  that  what 
each  asserts  is  equally  true  ;  it  may  quite 
well  be  the  case  that  the  one  man  really 
does  like  sugar,  and  the  other  really  does 
not  like  it.  The  one,  therefore,  is  never 
denying  what  the  other  is  asserting.  And 
what  the  view  we  are  considering  involves 
is  that  when  one  man  holds  an  action  to  be 
right,  and  another  holds  it  to  be  wrong  or 
not  right,  here  also  the  one  is  never  denying 
what  the  other  is  asserting.  It  involves, 
therefore,  the  very  curious  consequence 
that  no  two  men  can  ever  differ  in  opinion 
as  to  whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong. 
And  surely  the  fact  that  it  involves  this 


102 


ETHICS 


consequence  is  sufficient  to  condemn  it.  It 
is  surely  plain  matter  of  fact  that  when  I 
assert  an  action  to  be  wrong,  and  another 
man  asserts  it  to  be  right,  there  sometimes 
is  a  real  difference  of  opinion  between  us  : 
he  sometimes  is  denying  the  very  thing 
which  I  am  asserting.  But,  if  this  is  so, 
then  it  cannot  possibly  be  the  case  that  each 
of  us  is  merely  making  a  judgment  about  his 
own  feelings ;  since  two  such  judgments 
never  can  contradict  one  another.  We  can, 
therefore,  reduce  the  question  whether  this 
theory  is  true  or  not,  to  a  very  simple 
question  of  fact.  Is  it  ever  the  case  that 
when  one  man  thinks  that  an  action  is  right 
and  another  thinks  it  is  not  right,  that  the 
second  really  is  thinking  that  the  action  has 
not  got  some  predicate  which  the  first  thinks 
that  it  has  got  ?  I  think,  if  we  look  at  this 
question  fairly,  we  must  admit  that  it  some¬ 
times  is  the  case  ;  that  both  men  may  use 
the  word  “  right  ”  to  denote  exactly  the 
same  predicate,  and  that  the  one  may  really 
be  thinking  that  the  action  in  question  really 
has  this  predicate,  while  the  other  is  thinking 
that  it  has  not  got  it.  But  if  this  is  so,  then 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


103 


the  theory  we  are  considering  certainly  is 
not  true.  It  cannot  be  true  that  every  man 
always  denotes  by  the  word  “  right  ”  merely 
a  relation  to  his  own  feelings,  since,  if  that 
were  so,  no  two  men  would  ever  denote  by 
this  word  the  same  predicate  ;  and  hence  a 
man  who  said  that  an  action  was  not  right 
could  never  be  denying  that  it  had  the  very 
predicate,  which  another,  who  said  that  it 
was  right,  was  asserting  that  it  had. 

It  seems  to  me  this  argument  proves 
conclusively  that,  whatever  we  do  mean, 
when  we  say  that  an  action  is  right,  we 
certainly  do  not  mean  merely  that  we  our¬ 
selves  have  a  certain  feeling  towards  it.  But 
it  is  important  to  distinguish  carefully  be¬ 
tween  exactly  what  it  does  prove,  and  what 
it  does  not  prove.  It  does  not  prove,  at  all, 
that  it  may  not  be  the  case,  that,  whenever 
any  man  judges  an  action  to  be  right,  he 
always,  in  fact,  has  a  certain  feeling  towards 
it,  and  even  that  he  makes  the  judgment  only 
because  he  has  that  feeling.  It  only  proves 
that,  even  if  this  be  so,  what  he  is  judging  is 
not  merely  that  he  has  the  feeling.  And  these 
two  points  are,  I  think,  very  liable  to  be  con- 


104 


ETHICS 


fused.  It  may  be  alleged  to  be  a  fact  that 
whenever  a  man  judges  an  action  to  be  right, 
he  only  does  so,  because  he  has  a  certain  feeling 
towards  it ;  and  this  alleged  fact  may  actually 
be  used  as  an  argument  to  prove  that  what  he 
is  judging  is  merely  that  he  has  the  feeling. 
But  obviously,  even  if  the  alleged  fact  be  a 
fact,  it  does  not  in  the  least  support  this  con¬ 
clusion.  The  two  points  are  entirely  different, 
and  there  is  a  most  important  difference  be¬ 
tween  their  consequences.  The  difference  is 
that,  even  if  it  be  true  that  a  man  never 
judges  an  action  to  be  right,  unless  he  has  a 
certain  feeling  towards  it,  yet,  if  this  be  all, 
the  mere  fact  that  he  has  this  feeling,  will  not 
prove  his  judgment  to  be  true  ;  we  may  quite 
well  hold  that,  even  though  he  has  the  feeling 
and  judges  the  action  to  be  right,  yet  some¬ 
times  his  judgment  is  false  and  the  action  is 
not  really  right.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  hold  that  what  he  is  judging  is  merely  that 
he  has  the  feeling,  then  the  mere  fact  that  he 
has  it  will  prove  his  judgment  to  be  true  :  if 
he  is  only  judging  that  he  has  it,  then  the  mere 
fact  that  he  has  it  is,  of  course,  sufficient  to 
make  his  judgment  true.  We  must,  there- 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


105 


fore,  distinguish  carefully  between  the  asser¬ 
tion  that,  whenever  a  man  judges  an  action 
to  be  right,  he  only  does  so  because  he  has 
a  certain  feeling,  and  the  entirely  different 
assertion,  that,  whenever  he  judges  an  action 
to  be  right,  he  is  merely  judging  that  he  has 
this  feeling.  The  former  assertion,  even  if  it 
be  true,  does  not  prove  that  the  latter  is  true 
also.  And  we  may,  therefore,  dispute  the 

t 

latter  without  disputing  the  former.  It  is 
only  the  latter  which  our  argument  proves  to 
be  untrue  ;  and  not  a  word  has  been  said 
tending  to  show  that  the  former  may  not  be 
perfectly  true. 

Our  argument,  therefore,  does  not  disprove 
the  assertion,  if  it  should  be  made,  that  we 
only  judge  actions  to  be  right  and  wrong,  when 
and  because  we  have  certain  feelings  towards 
them.  And  it  is  also  important  to  insist  that 
it  does  not  disprove  another  assertion  also 
It  does  not  disprove  the  assertion  that,  when¬ 
ever  any  man  has  a  certain  feeling  towards 
an  action,  the  action  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact , 
always  right.  Anybody  is  still  perfectly  free 
to  hold  that  this  is  true,  as  a  matter  of  fact ,  and 
that,  therefore,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  and  the 


106 


ETHICS 


same  action  often  is  both  right  and  wrong, 
even  if  he  admits  what  our  argument  does 
prove  ;  namely,  that,  when  a  man  thinks  an 
action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  he  is  not  merely 
thinking  that  he  has  some  feeling  towards  it. 
The  only  importance  of  our  argument,  in  this 
connection,  is  merely  that  it  destroys  one  of 
the  main  reasons  for  holding  that  this  is  true, 
as  a  matter  of  fact.  If  we  once  clearly  see 
that  to  say  that  an  action  is  right  is  not  the 
same  thing  as  to  say  that  we  have  any  feeling 
towards  it,  what  reason  is  there  left  for  holding 
that  the  presence  of  a  certain  feeling  is,  in 
fact,  always  a  sign  that  it  is  right  ?  No  one, 
I  think,  would  be  very  much  tempted  to  assert 
that  the  mere  presence  (or  absence)  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  feeling  is  invariably  a  sign  of  rightness, 
but  for  the  supposition  that,  in  some  way  or 
other,  the  only  possible  meaning  of  the  word 
“  right,”  as  applied  to  actions,  is  that  some¬ 
body  has  a  certain  feeling  towards  them. 
And  it  is  this  supposition,  in  one  of  its  forms, 
that  our  argument  does  disprove. 

But  even  if  it  be  admitted  that,  in  this  pre¬ 
cise  form,  the  view  is  quite  untenable,  it  may 
still  be  urged  that  nevertheless  it  is  true  in 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


107 


some  other  form,  from  which  the  same  con¬ 
sequence  will  follow — namely,  the  consequence 
that  one  and  the  same  action  is  quite  often 
both  right  and  wrong.  Many  people  have 
such  a  strong  disposition  to  believe  that  when 
we  judge  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong  we 
must  be  merely  making  an  assertion  about  the 
feelings  of  some  man  or  set  of  men,  that,  even 
if  they  are  convinced  that  we  are  not  always 
merely  making  an  assertion,  each  about  his 
own  feelings,  they  will  still  be  disposed  to 
think  that  we  must  be  making  one  about 
somebody  else’s.  The  difficulty  is  to  find  any 
man  or  set  of  men  about  whose  feelings  it  can 
be  plausibly  held  that  we  are  making  an 
assertion,  if  we  are  not  merely  making  one 
about  our  own  ;  but  still  there  are  two  alter¬ 
natives,  which  may  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  be 
just  possible,  namely  (1)  that  each  man,  when 
he  asserts  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  is 
merely  asserting  that  a  certain  feeling  is 
generally  felt  towards  actions  of  that  class 
by  most  of  the  members  of  the  society  to 
which  he  belongs,  or  (2)  merely  that  some  man 
or  other  has  a  certain  feeling  towards  them. 

From  either  of  these  two  views,  it  will,  of 


108 


ETHICS 


course,  follow  that  one  and  the  same  action 
is  often  both  right  and  wrong,  for  the  same 
reasons  as  were  given  in  the  last  case. 
Thus,  if,  when  I  assert  an  action  to  be  right, 
I  am  merely  asserting  that  it  is  generally 
approved  in  the  society  to  which  I  belong,  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  if  it  is  generally  ap¬ 
proved  by  my  society,  my  assertion  is  true, 
and  the  action  really  is  right.  But  as  we  saw, 
it  seems  undeniable,  that  some  actions  which 
are  generally  approved  in  my  society,  will  have 
been  disapproved  or  will  still  be  disapproved 
in  other  societies.  And,  since  any  member 
of  one  of  those  societies  will,  on  this  view, 
when  he  judges  an  action  to  be  wrong,  be 
merely  judging  that  it  is  disapproved  in  his 
society,  it  follows  that  when  he  judges  one 
of  these  actions,  which  really  is  disapproved 
in  his  society,  though  approved  in  mine,  to  be 
wrong ,  this  judgment  of  his  will  be  just  as 
true  as  my  judgment  that  the  same  action 
was  right  :  and  hence  the  same  action  really 
will  be  both  right  and  wrong.  And  similarly, 
if  we  adopt  the  other  alternative,  and  say 
that  when  a  man  judges  an  action  to  be  right 
he  is  merely  judging  that  some  man  or  other 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


109 


has  a  particular  feeling  towards  it,  it  will,  of 
course,  follow  that  whenever  any  man  at  all 
really  has  this  feeling  towards  it,  the  action 
really  is  right,  while,  whenever  any  man  at  all 
has  not  got  it  or  has  an  opposite  feeling,  the 
action  really  is  wrong :  and,  since  cases  will  cer¬ 
tainly  occur  in  which  one  man  has  the  required 
feeling,  while  another  has  an  opposite  one 
towards  the  same  action,  in  all  such  cases  the 
same  action  will  be  both  right  and  wrong. 

From  either  of  these  two  views,  then,  the 
same  consequence  will  follow.  And,  though  I 
do  not  know  whether  any  one  would  definitely 
hold  either  of  them  to  be  true,  it  is,  I  think, 
worth  while  briefly  to  consider  the  objections 
to  them,  because  they  seem  to  be  the  only 
alternatives  left,  from  which  this  consequence 
will  follow,  when  once  we  have  rejected  the 
view  that,  in  our  judgments  of  right  and 
wrong,  each  of  us  is  merely  talking  about  his 
own  feelings  ;  and  because,  while  the  objec¬ 
tion  which  did  apply  to  that  view,  does  not 
apply  equally  to  these,  there  is  an  objection 
which  does  apply  to  these,  but  which  does 
not  apply  nearly  so  obviously  to  that  one. 

The  objection  which  was  urged  against 


110 


ETHICS 


that  view  does,  indeed,  apply,  in  a  limited 
extent,  to  the  first  of  these  two  :  since  if 
when  a  man  judges  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  he  is  always  merely  making 
an  assertion  about  the  feelings  of  his  own 
society,  it  will  follow  that  two  men,  who 
belong  to  different  societies,  can  never  possibly 
differ  in  opinion  as  to  whether  an  action  is 
right  or  wrong.  But  this  objection  does  not 
apply  as  between  two  men  who  both  belong 
to  the  same  society.  The  view  that  when 
any  man  asserts  an  action  to  be  right  he  is 
merely  making  an  assertion  about  the  feelings 
of  his  own  society,  does  allow  that  two  men 
belonging  to  the  same  society  may  really 
differ  in  opinion  as  to  whether  an  action  is 
right  or  wrong.  Neither  this  view,  therefore, 
nor  the  view  that  we  are  merely  asserting  that 
some  man  or  other  has  a  particular  feeling  to¬ 
wards  the  action  in  question  involves  the  absur¬ 
dity  that  no  two  men  can  ever  differ  in  opinion 
as  to  whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong. 
We  cannot,  therefore,  urge  the  fact  that  they 
involve  this  absurdity  as  an  objection  against 
them,  as  we  could  ‘against  the  view  that  each 
man  is  merely  talking  of  his  own  feelings. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


111 


But  both  of  them  are  nevertheless  exposed 
to  another  objection,  equally  fatal,  to  which 
that  view  was  not  so  obviously  exposed.  The 
objection  is  again  merely  one  of  psychological 
fact,  resting  upon  observation  of  what  actually 
happens  when  a  man  thinks  an  action  to  be 
right  or  wrong.  For,  whatever  feeling  or  feel¬ 
ings  we  take  as  the  ones  about  which  he  is 
supposed  to  be  judging,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
a  man  may  think  an  action  to  be  right,  even 
when  he  does  not  think  that  the  members  of  his 
society  have  in  general  the  required  feeling 
(or  absence  of  feeling)  towards  it ;  and  that 
similarly  he  may  doubt  whether  an  action 
is  right,  even  when  he  does  not  doubt  that 
some  man  or  other  has  the  required  feeling 
towards  it.  Cases  of  this  kind  certainly 
constantly  occur,  and  what  they  prove  is 
that,  whatever  a  man  is  thinking  when  he 
thinks  an  action  to  be  right,  he  is  certainly 
not  merely  thinking  that  his  society  has  in 
general  a  particular  feeling  towards  it ;  and 
similarly  that,  when  he  is  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  an  action  is  right,  the  question  about 
which  he  is  in  doubt  is  not  merely  as  to 
whether  any  man  at  all  has  the  required 


112 


ETHICS 


feeling  towards  it.  Facts  of  this  kind  are, 
therefore,  absolutely  fatal  to  both  of  these 
two  theories ;  whereas  in  the  case  of  the 
theory  that  he  is  merely  making  a  judgment 
about  his  own  feelings,  it  is  not  so  obvious 
that  there  are  any  facts  of  the  same  kind 
inconsistent  with  it.  For  here  it  might  be 
urged  with  some  plausibility  (though,  I 
think,  untruly)  that  when  a  man  judges  an 
action  to  be  right  he  always  does  think  that 
he  himself  has  some  particular  feeling  towards 
it ;  and  similarly  that  when  he  is  in  doubt 
as  to  whether  an  action  is  right  he  always 
is  in  doubt  as  to  his  own  feelings.  But  it 
cannot  possibly  be  urged,  with  any  plausibility 
at  all,  that  when  a  man  judges  an  action  to 
be  right  he  always  thinks,  for  instance,  that  it 
is  generally  approved  in  his  society ;  or  that 
when  he  is  in  doubt,  he  is  always  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  any  man  approves  it.  He  may  know 
quite  well  that  somebody  does  approve  it,  and 
yet  be  in  doubt  whether  it  is  right ;  and  he 
may  be  quite  certain  that  his  society  does 
not  approve  it,  and  yet  still  think  that  it  is 
right.  And  the  same  will  hold,  whatever 
feeling  we  take  instead  of  moral  approval. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


113 


These  facts,  then,  seem  to  me  to  prove 
conclusively  that,  when  a  man  judges  an 
action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  he  is  not  always 
merely  judging  that  his  society  has  some 
particular  feeling  towards  actions  of  that 
class,  nor  yet  that  some  man  has.  But  here 
again  it  is  important  to  insist  on  the  limita¬ 
tions  of  the  argument ;  and  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  what  it  does  prove  and  what 
it  does  not.  It  does  not,  of  course,  prove 
that  any  class  of  action  towards  which  any 
society  has  a  particular  feeling,  may  not, 
as  a  matter  of  fact ,  always  be  right ;  nor 
even  that  any  action,  towards  which  any 
man  whatever  has  the  feeling,  may  not,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  always  be  so.  Anybody,  while 
fully  admitting  the  force  of  our  argument, 
is  still  perfectly  free  to  hold  that  these  things 
are  true,  as  a  matter  of  fact ;  and  hence  that 
one  and  the  same  action  often  is  both  right 
and  wrong.  All  that  our  arguments,  taken 
together,  do  strictly  prove,  is  that,  when  a 
man  asserts  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong, 
he  is  not  merely  making  an  assertion  either 
about  his  own  feelings  nor  yet  about  those 
of  the  society  in  which  he  lives,  nor  yet 


114 


ETHICS 


merely  that  some  man  or  other  has  some 
feeling  towards  it.  This,  and  nothing  more, 
is  what  they  prove.  But  if  we  once  admit 
that  this  much  is  proved,  what  reason  have 
we  left  for  asserting  that  it  is  true,  as  a 
matter  of  fact ,  that  whatever  any  society  or 
any  man  has  a  particular  feeling  towards, 
always  is  right  ?  It  may ,  of  course,  be  true 
as  a  matter  of  fact ;  but  is  there  any  reason 
for  supposing  that  it  is  ?  If  the  predicate 
which  we  mean  by  the  word  “  right,”  and 
which,  therefore,  must  belong  to  every 
action  which  really  is  right,  is  something 
quite  different  from  a  mere  relation  to 
anybody’s  feelings,  why  should  we  suppose 
that  such  a  relation  does,  in  fact,  always 
go  along  with  it ;  and  that  this  predicate 
always  belongs,  in  addition ,  to  every  action 
which  has  the  required  relation  to  somebody’s 
feelings  ?  If  rightness  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  the  having  a  relation  to  the  feelings  of 
any  man  or  set  of  men,  it  would  be  a  curious 
coincidence,  if  any  such  relation  were 
invariably  a  sign  of  rightness.  What  we 
have  proved  is  that  rightness  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  any  such  relation  ;  and  if  that  be 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


115 


so,  then,  the  probability  is  that  even  where 
an  action  has  the  required  relation  to  some¬ 
body’s  feelings,  it  will  not  always  be  right. 

There  are,  then,  conclusive  reasons  against 
the  view  that,  when  we  assert  an  action  to 
be  right  or  wrong,  we  are  merely  asserting 
that  somebody  has  a  particular  feeling 
towards  it,  in  any  of  the  forms  in  which  it 
will  follow  from  this  view  that  one  and  the 
same  action  can  be  both  right  and  wrong. 
And  we  can,  I  think,  also  see  that  one  of  the 
reasons,  which  seems  to  have  had  most 
influence  in  leading  people  to  suppose  that 
this  view  must  be  true,  in  some  form  or 
other,  is  quite  without  weight.  The  reason 
I  mean  is  one  drawn  from  certain  considera¬ 
tions  as  to  the  origin  of  our  moral  judgments. 
It  has  been  widely  held  that,  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race,  judgments  of  right  and 
wrong  originated  in  the  fact  that  primitive 
men  or  their  non-human  ancestors  had  certain 
feelings  towards  certain  classes  of  actions. 
That  is  to  say,  it  is  supposed  that  there  was 
a  time,  if  we  go  far  enough  back,  when  our 
ancestors  did  have  different  feelings  towards 
different  actions,  being,  for  instance,  pleased 


116 


ETHICS 


with  some  and  displeased  with  others,  but 
when  they  did  not,  as  yet,  judge  any  actions 
to  be  right  or  wrong  ;  and  that  it  was  only 
because  they  transmitted  these  feelings,  more 
or  less  modified,  to  their  descendants,  that 
those  descendants  at  some  later  stage,  began 
to  make  judgments  of  right  and  wrong  ;  so 
that,  in  a  sense,  our  moral  judgments  were 
developed  out  of  mere  feelings.  And  I  can 
see  no  objection  to  the  supposition  that  this 
was  so.  But,  then,  it  seems  also  to  be  often 
supposed  that,  if  our  moral  judgments  were 
developed  out  of  feelings — if  this  was  their 
origin — they  must  still  at  this  moment  be 
somehow  concerned  with  feelings  :  that  the 
developed  product  must  resemble  the  germ 
out  of  which  it  was  developed  in  this  particular 
respect.  And  this  is  an  assumption  for 
which  there  is,  surely,  no  shadow  of  ground. 
It  is  admitted,  on  all  hands,  that  the  developed 
product  does  always  differ,  in  some  respects, 
from  its  origin ;  and  the  precise  respects 
in  which  it  differs  is  a  matter  which  can 
only  be  settled  by  observation  :  we  cannot 
lay  down  a  universal  rule  that  it  must  always 
resemble  it  in  certain  definite  respects. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


117 


Thus,  even  those  who  hold  that  our  moral 
judgments  are  merely  judgments  about 
feelings  must  admit  that,  at  some  point  in 
the  history  of  the  human  race,  men,  or  their 
ancestors,  began  not  merely  to  have  feelings 
but  to  judge  that  they  had  them  :  and  this 
alone  means  an  enormous  change.  If  such 
a  change  as  this  must  have  occurred  at  some 
time  or  other,  without  our  being  able  to  say 
precisely  when  or  why,  what  reason  is  there, 
why  another  change,  which  is  scarcely 
greater,  should  not  also  have  occurred,  either 
before  or  after  it  ?  a  change  consisting  in 
the  fact  that  men  for  the  first  time  become 
conscious  of  another  predicate,  which  might 
attach  to  actions,  beside  the  mere  fact  that 
certain  feelings  were  felt  towards  them,  and 
began  to  judge  of  this  other  predicate  that 
it  did  or  did  not  belong  to  certain  actions  ? 
It  is  certain  that,  if  men  have  been  developed 
from  non-human  ancestors  at  all,  there  must 
have  been  many  occasions  on  which  they 
became  possessed  for  the  first  time  of  some 
new  idea.  And  why  should  not  the  ideas, 
which  we  convey  by  the  words  right  and 
“  wrong,”  be  among  the  number,  even  if 


118 


ETHICS 


these  ideas  do  not  merely  consist  in  the 
thought  that  some  man  has  a  particular 
feeling  towards  some  action  ?  There  is  no 
more  reason  why  such  an  idea  should  not 
have  been  developed  out  of  the  mere  existence 
of  a  feeling  than  why  the  judgment  that  we 
have  feelings  should  not  have  been  developed 
from  the  same  origin.  And  hence  the  theory 
that  moral  judgments  originated  in  feelings 
does  not,  in  fact,  lend  any  support  at  all 
to  the  theory  that  now,  as  developed,  they 
can  only  be  judgments  about  feelings.  No 
argument  from  the  origin  of  a  thing  can  be  a 
safe  guide  as  to  exactly  what  the  nature  of 
the  thing  is  now.  That  is  a  question  which 
must  be  settled  by  actual  analysis  of  the 
thing  in  its  present  state.  And  such  analysis 
seems  plainly  to  show  that  moral  judgments 
are  not  merely  judgments  about  feelings. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  the  theory  that  our 
judgments  of  right  and  wrong  are  merely 
judgments  about  somebody’s  feelings  is  quite 
untenable  in  any  of  the  forms  in  which 
it  will  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  one  and 
the  same  action  is  often  both  right  and 
wrong.  But  I  said  that  this  was  only  one 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS  119 


out  of  two  theories,  which  seem  to  be  those 
which  have  the  most  influence  in  leading 
people  to  adopt  this  conclusion.  And  we 
must  now  briefly  consider  the  second  of 
these  two  theories. 

This  second  theory  is  one  wdiich  is  often 
confused  with  the  one  just  considered.  It 
consists  in  asserting  that  when  we  judge  an 
action  to  be  right  or  wrong  what  we  are 
asserting  is  merely  that  somebody  or  other 
thinks  it  to  be  right  or  wrong.  That  is  to 
say,  just  as  the  last  theory  asserted  that  our 
moral  judgments  are  merely  judgments  about 
somebody’s  feelings ,  this  one  asserts  that 
they  are  merely  judgments  about  somebody  s 
thoughts  or  opinions.  And  they  are  apt  to 
be  confused  with  one  another  because  a  man’s 
feelings  with  regard  to  an  action  are  not 
always  clearly  distinguished  from  his  opinion 
as  to  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong.  Thus  one 
and  the  same  word  is  often  used,  sometimes 
to  express  the  fact  that  a  man  has  a  feeling 
towards  an  action,  and  sometimes  to  express 
the  fact  that  he  has  an  opinion  about  it. 
When,  for  instance,  we  say  that  a  man 
approves  an  action,  we  may  mean  either  that 


120 


ETHICS 


he  has  a  feeling  towards  it,  or  that  he  thinks 
it  to  be  right ;  and  so  too,  when  we  say  that 
he  disapproves  it,  we  may  mean  either  that 
he  has  a  certain  feeling  towards  it,  or  that 
he  thinks  it  to  be  wrong.  But  yet  it  is 
quite  plain  that  to  have  a  feeling  towards 
an  action,  no  matter  what  feeling  we  take, 
is  a  different  thing  from  judging  it  to  be 
right  or  wrong.  Even  if  we  were  to  adopt 
one  of  the  views  just  rejected  and  to  say 
that  to  judge  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong 
is  the  same  thing  as  to  judge  that  we  have  a 
feeling  towards  it,  it  would  still  follow  that 
to  make  the  judgment  is  something  different 
from  merely  having  the  feeling  ;  for  a  man 
may  certainly  have  a  feeling,  without  thinking 
that  he  has  it ;  or  think  that  he  has  it, 
without  having  it.  We  must,  therefore, 
distinguish  between  the  theory  that  to  say 
that  an  action  is  right  or  wrong  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  say  that  somebody  has  some 
kind  of  feeling  towards  it,  and  the  theory 
that  it  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that 
somebody  thinks  it  to  be  right  or  wrong. 

This  latter  theory,  however,  may  be  held 
in  the  same  three  different  forms,  as  the 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


121 


former  ;  and  in  whichever  form  it  is  held, 
it  will  lead  to  the  same  conclusion — namely, 
that  one  and  the  same  action  is  very  often 
both  right  and  wrong — and  for  the  same 
reasons.  If,  for  instance,  when  I  say  that 
an  action  is  right,  all  that  I  mean  is  that 
I  think  it  to  be  right,  it  will  follow,  that,  if  I 
do  really  think  it  to  be  right,  my  judgment 
that  I  think  so  will  be  true  ;  and  since  this 
judgment  is  supposed  to  be  identical  with 
the  judgment  that  it  is  right,  it  will  follow 
that  the  judgment  that  it  is  right  is  true 
and  hence  that  the  action  really  is  right. 
And  since  it  is  even  more  obvious  that 
different  men’s  opinions  as  to  whether  a 
given  action  is  right  or  wrong  differ  both  at 
the  same  time  and  at  different  times,  than 
that  their  feelings  towards  the  same  action 
differ,  it  will  follow  that  one  and  the  same 
action  very  often  is  both  right  and  wrong. 
And  just  as  the  conclusion  which  follows 
from  this  theory  is  the  same  as  that  which 
followed  from  the  last,  so  also,  in  each  of 
the  three  different  forms  in  which  it  may 
be  held,  it  is  open  to  exactly  the  same 
objections.  Thus,  in  its  first  form,  it  will 


122 


ETHICS 


involve  the  absurdity  that  no  two  men  ever 
differ  in  opinion  as  to  whether  an  action  is 
right  or  wrong,  and  will  thus  contradict  a  plain 
fact.  While  in  the  other  two  forms,  it  will 
involve  the  conclusions  that  no  man  ever 
thinks  an  action  to  be  right,  unless  he  thinks 
that  his  society  thinks  it  to  be  right,  and  that 
no  man  ever  doubts  whether  an  action  is  right, 
unless  he  doubts  whether  any  man  at  all 
thinks  it  right — two  conclusions  which  are 
both  of  them  certainly  untrue. 

These  objections  are,  I  think,  sufficient  by 
themselves  to  dispose  of  this  theory  as  of 
the  last  ;  but  it  is  worth  while  to  dwell  on 
it  a  little  longer,  because  it  is  also  exposed 
to  another  objection,  of  quite  a  different 
order,  to  which  the  last  was  not  exposed, 
and  because  it  owes  its  plausibility  partly, 
I  think,  to  the  fact  that  it  is  liable  to  be 
confused  with  another  theory,  which  may 
be  expressed  in  exactly  the  same  words,  and 
which  may  quite  possibly  be  true. 

The  special  objection  to  which  this  theory 
is  exposed  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  is  in 
all  cases  totally  impossible  that,  when  we 
believe  a  given  thing,  what  we  believe  should 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


123 


merely  be  that  we  (or  anybody  else)  have 
the  belief  in  question.  This  is  impossible, 
because,  if  it  were  the  case,  we  should  not 
be  believing  anything  at  all.  For  let  us 
suppose  it  to  be  the  case  :  let  us  suppose 
that,  when  I  believe  that  A  is  B,  what  I  am 
believing  is  merely  that  somebody  believes 
that  A  is  B.  What  I  am  believing,  on  this 
supposition,  is  merely  that  somebody  (either 
myself  or  somebody  else)  entertains  the 
belief  that  A  is  B.  But  what  is  this  belief 
which  I  am  believing  that  somebody  enter¬ 
tains  ?  According  to  the  theory  it  is  itself, 
in  its  turn,  merely  the  belief  that  somebody 
believes  that  A  is  B.  So  that  what  I  am 
believing  turns  out  to  be  that  somebody 
believes  that  somebody  believes — that  A  is  B. 
But  here  again,  we  may  substitute  for  the 
phrase  “  that  A  is  B,”  what  is  supposed  to 
be  identical  with  it — namely,  that  somebody 
believes ,  that  A  is  B.  And  here  again  we 
may  make  the  same  substitution  ;  and  so 
on  absolutely  ad  infinitum .  So  that  what  I 
am  believing  will  turn  out  to  be  that  some¬ 
body  believes,  that  somebody  believes,  that 
somebody  believes,  that  somebody  believes 


124 


ETHICS 


...  ad  infinitum.  Always,  when  I  try  to 
state,  what  it  is  that  the  somebody  believes, 
I  shall  find  it  to  be  again  merely  that  somebody 
believes  .  .  .  ,  and  I  shall  never  get  to  any¬ 
thing  whatever  which  is  what  is  believed. 
But  thus  to  believe  that  somebody  believes, 
that  somebody  believes,  that  somebody 
believes  .  .  .  quite  indefinitely,  without  ever 
coming  to  anything  which  is  what  is  believed, 
is  to  believe  nothing  at  all.  So  that,  if  this 
were  the  case,  there  could  be  no  such  belief 
as  the  belief  that  A  is  B.  We  must,  there¬ 
fore,  admit  that,  in  no  case  whatever,  when 
we  believe  a  given  thing,  can  the  given  thing 
in  question  be  merely  that  we  ourselves  (or 
somebody  else)  believe  the  very  same  given 
thing.  And  since  this  is  true  in  all  cases, 
it  must  be  true  in  our  special  case.  It  is 
totally  impossible,  therefore,  that  to  believe 
an  action  to  be  right  can  be  the  same  thing 
as  believing  that  we  ourselves  or  somebody 
else  believe  it  to  be  right. 

But  the  fact  that  this  view  is  untenable 
is,  I  think,  liable  to  be  obscured  by  the  fact 
that  we  often  express,  in  the  same  words, 
another  view,  quite  different  from  this,  which 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


125 


may  quite  well  be  true.  When  a  man  asserts 
that  an  action  is  right  or  wrong,  it  may 
quite  well  be  true,  in  a  sense,  that  all  that 
he  is  expressing  by  this  assertion  is  the  fact 
that  he  thinks  it  to  be  right  or  wrong.  The 
truth  is  that  there  is  an  important  distinction, 
which  is  not  always  observed,  between  what 
a  man  means  by  a  given  assertion  and  what 
he  expresses  by  it.  Whenever  we  make  any 
assertion  whatever  (unless  we  do  not  mean 
what  we  say)  we  are  always  expressing  one 
or  other  of  two  things — namely,  either  that 
we  think  the  thing  in  question  to  be  so  or 
that  we  know  it  to  be  so.  If,  for  instance, 

I  say  “  A  is  B,”  and  mean  what  I  say,  what 
I  mean  is  always  merely  that  A  is  B  ;  but 
those  words  of  mine  will  always  also  express 
either  the  fact  that  1  think  that  A  is  B,  or 
the  fact  that  I  know  it  to  be  so  ;  and  even 
where  I  do  not  mean  what  I  say,  my  words 
may  be  said  to  imply  either  that  I  think 
that  A  is  B  or  that  I  know  it,  since  they  . 
will  commonly  lead  people  to  suppose  that 
one  or  other  of  these  two  things  is  the  case. 
Whenever,  therefore,  a  man  asserts  that  an 
action  is  right  or  wrong,  what  he  expresses 


126 


ETHICS 


or  implies  by  these  words  will  be  either  that 
he  thinks  it  to  be  so  or  that  he  knows  it  to 
be  so,  although  neither  of  these  two  things 
can  possibly  constitute  the  whole  of  what 
he  means  to  assert.  And  it  is  quite  possible 
to  hold  that,  as  between  these  two  alternatives 
which  he  expresses  or  implies,  it  is  always 
the  first  only,  and  never  the  second,  which 
is  expressed  or  implied.  That  is  to  say,  it 
may  be  held,  that  we  always  only  believe  or 
think  that  an  action  is  right  or  wrong,  and 
never  really  know  which  it  is  ;  that,  when, 
therefore,  we  assert  one  to  be  so,  we  are 
always  merely  expressing  an  opinion  or 
belief,  never  expressing  knowledge . 

This  is  a  view  which  is  quite  tenable,  and  for 
which  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said ;  and  it 
is,  I  think,  certainly  liable  to  be  confused  with 
that  other,  quite  untenable,  view,  that,  when 
a  man  asserts  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong, 
all  that  he  means  to  assert  is  that  he  thinks 
it  to  be  so.  The  two  are,  in  fact,  apt  to  be 
expressed^in  exactly  the  same  language. 
If  a  man  asserts  “  Such  and  such  an  action 
was  wrong,”  he  is  liable  to  be  met  by  the 
rejoinder,  “  What  you  really  mean  is  that 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


127 


you  think  it  was  wrong  ”  ;  and  the  person 
who  makes  this  rejoinder  will  generally  only 
mean  by  it,  that  the  man  does  not  know  the 
action  to  be  wrong,  but  only  believes  that 
it  is  so  :  that  he  is  merely  expressing  his 
opinion,  and  has  no  absolute  knowledge  on 
the  point.  In  other  words,  a  man  is  often 
loosely  said  to  mean  by  an  assertion  what, 
in  fact,  he  is  only  expressing  by  it  ;  and  for 
this  and  other  reasons  the  two  views  we  are 
considering  are  liable  to  be  confused  with 
one  another. 

But  obviously  there  is  an  immense  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  two.  If  we  only  hold  the 
tenable  view  that  no  man  ever  knows  an  action 
to  be  right  or  wrong,  but  can  only  think  it  to 
be  so,  then,  so  far  from  implying  the  untenable 
view  that  to  assert  an  action  to  be  right  or 
wrong  is  the  same  thing  as  to  assert  that  we 
think  it  to  be  so,  we  imply  the  direct  opposite 
of  this.  For  nobody  would  maintain  that  I 
cannot  know  that  I  think  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong ;  and  if,  therefore,  I  cannot  know  that 
it  is  right  or  wrong,  it  follows  that  there  is  an 
immense  difference  between  the  assertion  that 
it  is  right  or  wrong,  and  the  assertion  that  1 


128 


ETHICS 


think  it  to  be  so  :  the  former  is  an  assertion, 
which,  according  to  this  view,  I  can  never 
know  to  be  true,  whereas  the  latter  is  an 
assertion  which  I  obviously  can  know  to  be 
true.  The  tenable  view,  therefore,  that  we 
can  never  know  whether  an  action  is  right 
or  wrong,  does  not  in  the  least  support  the 
untenable  view  that  for  an  action  to  he  right 
or  wrong  is  the  same  thing  as  for  it  to  be 
thought  to  be  so  :  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
quite  inconsistent  with  it,  since  it  is  obvious 
that  we  can  know  that  certain  actions  are 
thought  to  he  right  and  that  others  are  thought 
to  be  wrong.  But  yet,  I  think,  it  is  not 
uncommon  to  find  the  two  views  combined, 
and  to  find  one  and  the  same  person  holding, 
at  the  same  time,  both  that  we  never  know 
whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong,  and 
also  that  to  say  that  an  action  is  right  or 
wrong  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it 
is  thought  to  be  so.  The  two  views  ought 
obviously  to  be  clearly  distinguished  ;  and, 
if  they  are  so  distinguished,  it  becomes,  I 
think,  quite  plain  that  the  latter  must  be 
rejected,  if  only  because,  if  it  were  true,  the 
former  could  not  possibly  be  so. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


129 


We  have,  then,  considered  in  this  chapter 
two  different  views,  namely  (1)  the  view  that 
to  say  that  an  action  is  right  or  wrong  is  the 
same  thing  as  to  say  that  somebody  has  some 
feeling  (or  absence  of  feeling)  towards  it,  and 
(2)  the  view  that  to  say  that  an  action  is  right 
or  wrong  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that 
somebody  thinks  it  to  be  so.  Both  these 
views,  when  held  in  certain  forms,  imply  that 
one  and  the  same  action  very  often  is  both 
right  and  wrong,  owing  to  the  fact  that  differ¬ 
ent  men,  and  different  societies,  often  do  have 
different  and  opposite  feelings  towards,  and 
different  and  opposite  opinions  about,  the 
same  action.  The  fact  that  they  imply  this 
is,  in  itself,  an  argument  against  these  views  ; 
since  it  seems  evident  that  one  and  the  same 
action  cannot  be  both  right  and  wrong.  But 
some  people  may  not  think  that  this  is 
evident ;  and  therefore  independent  objec¬ 
tions  have  been  urged  against  them,  which 
do,  I  think,  show  them  to  be  untenable.  In 
the  case  of  the  first  view,  such  arguments 
were  only  brought  against  those  forms  of  the 
view,  which  do  imply  that  one  and  the  same 
action  is  often  both  right  and  wrong.  The 

E 


130 


ETHICS 


same  view  may  be  held  in  other  forms,  which 
do  not  imply  this  consequence,  and  which 
will  therefore  be  dealt  with  in  the  next 
chapter.  But  in  the  case  of  the  second  view 
a  general  argument  was  also  used,  which 
applies  to  absolutely  all  forms  in  which  it  may 

be  held. 

Even  apart  from  the  fact  that  they  lead  to 
the  conclusion  that  one  and  the  same  action 
is  often  both  right  and  wrong,  it  is,  I  think, 
very  important  that  we  should  realise,  to 
begin  with,  that  these  views  are  false  ;  be¬ 
cause,  if  they  were  true,  it  would  follow  that 
we  must  take  an  entirely  different  view  as  to 
the  whole  nature  of  Ethics,  so  far  as  it  is  con¬ 
cerned  with  right  and  wrong,  from  what  has 
commonly  been  taken  by  a  majority  of  writers. 
If  these  views  were  true,  the  whole  business 
of  Ethics,  in  this  department,  would  merely 
consist  in  discovering  what  feelings  and 
opinions  men  have  actually  had  about  differ¬ 
ent  actions,  and  why  they  have  had  them. 
A  good  many  writers  seem  actually  to  have 
treated  the  subject  as  if  this  were  all  that  it 
had  to  investigate.  And  of  course  questions 
of  this  sort  are  not  without  interest,  and  are 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


131 


subjects  of  legitimate  curiosity.  But  such 
questions  only  form  one  special  branch  of 
Psychology  or  Anthropology ;  and  most 
writers  have  certainly  proceeded  on  the 
assumption  that  the  special  business  of  Ethics, 
and  the  questions  which  it  has  to  try  to 
answer,  are  something  quite  different  from 
this.  They  have  assumed  that  the  question 
whether  an  action  is  right  cannot  be  com¬ 
pletely  settled  by  showing  that  any  man  or 
set  of  men  have  certain  feelings  or  opinions 
about  it.  They  would  admit  that  the  feelings 
and  opinions  of  men  may,  in  various  ways, 
have  a  bearing  on  the  question  ;  but  the  mere 
fact  that  a  given  man  or  set  of  men  has  a 
given  feeling  or  opinion  can,  they  would  say, 
never  be  sufficient,  by  itself \  to  show  that  an 
action  is  right  or  wrong. 

But  the  views,  which  have  been  considered 
in  this  chapter,  imply  the  direct  contrary  of 
this  :  they  imply  that,  when  once  we  have 
discovered,  what  men’s  feelings  or  opinions 
actually  are,  the  whole  question  is  finally 
settled  ,*  that  there  is,  in  fact,  no  further 
question  to  discuss.  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  these  views  are  untenable,  and  I  shall, 


E  2 


132 


ETHICS 


in  future,  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that 
they  are  so  ;  as  also  I  shall  proceed  on  the 
assumption  that  one  and  the  same  action 
cannot  be  both  right  and  wrong.  And  the 
very  fact  that  we  can  proceed  upon  these 
assumptions  is  an  indirect  argument  in  favour 
of  their  correctness.  For  if,  whenever  we 
assert  an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  we 
were  merely  making  an  assertion  about  some 
man’s  feelings  or  opinions,  it  would  be  in¬ 
credible  we  should  be  so  mistaken  as  to  our 
own  meaning,  as  to  think  that  a  question  of 
right  or  wrong  cannot  be  absolutely  settled 
by  showing  what  men  feel  and  think,  and  to 
think  that  an  action  cannot  be  both  right  and 
wrong.  It  will  be  seen  that,  on  these  assump¬ 
tions,  we  can  raise  many  questions  about 
right  and  wrong,  which  seem  obviously  not 
to  be  absurd  ;  and  which  yet  would  be  quite 
absurd — would  be  questions  about  which  we 
could  not  hesitate  for  a  moment — if  assertions 
about  right  and  wrong  were  merely  assertions 
about  men’s  feelings  and  opinions,  or  if  the 
same  action  could  be  both  right  and  wrong. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  OBJECTIVITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS 

(i concluded ) 

It  was  stated,  at  the  beginning  of  the  last 
chapter,  that  the  ethical  theory  we  are  con¬ 
sidering— the  theory  stated  in  the  first  two 
chapters — does  not  maintain  with  regard  to 
any  class  of  voluntary  actions,  that,  if  an 
action  of  the  class  in  question  is  once  right, 
any  other  action  of  the  same  class  must 
always  be  right.  And  this  is  true,  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  statement  would,  I  think, 
be  naturally  understood.  But  it  is /now 
important  to  emphasise  that,  in  a  certain 
sense,  the  statement  is  untrue.  Our  theory 
does  assert  that,  if  any  voluntary  action  is 
once  right,  then  any  other  voluntary  action 
which  resembled  it  in  one  particular  respect 
(or  rather  in  a  combination  of  two  respects) 
must  always  also  be  right ;  and  since,  if  we 

133 


134 


ETHICS 


take  the  word  class  in  the  widest  possible 
sense,  any  set  of  actions  which  resemble 
one  another  in  any  respect  whatever  may 
be  said  to  form  a  class,  it  follows  that,  in 
this  wide  sense,  our  theory  does  maintain 
that  there  are  many  classes  of  action,  such 
that,  if  an  action  belonging  to  one  of  them 
is  once  right,  any  action  belonging  to  the 
same  class  would  always  be  right. 

Exactly  what  our  theory  does  assert  under 
this  head  cannot,  I  think,  be  stated  accurately 
except  in  rather  a  complicated  way  ;  but 
it  is  important  to  state  it  as  precisely  as 
possible.  The  precise  point  is  this.  This 
theory  asserted,  as  we  saw,  that  the  question 
whether  a  voluntary  action  is  right  or  wrong 
always  depends  upon  what  its  total  effects 
are,  as  compared  with  the  total  effects  of  all 
the  alternative  actions,  which  we  could  have 
done  instead.  Let  us  suppose,  then,  that 
we  have  an  action  X,  which  is  right,  and 
whose  total  effects  are  A  ;  and  let  us  suppose 
that  the  total  effects  of  all  the  possible 
alternative  actions  would  have  been  re¬ 
spectively  B,  C,  D  and  E.  The  precise 
principle  with  which  we  are  now  concerned 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


135 


may  then  be  stated  as  follows.  Our  theory 
implies,  namely,  that  any  action  Y  which 
resembled  X  in  both  the  two  respects  (1)  that 
its  total  effects  were  precisely  similar  to  A 
and  (2)  that  the  total  effects  of  all  the  possible 
alternatives  were  precisely  similar  to  B,  C, 
D  and  E,  would  necessarily  also  be  right, 
if  X  was  right,  and  would  necessarily  also 
be  wrong,  if  X  was  wrong.  It  is  important 
-  to  emphasise  the  point  that  this  will  only 
be  true  of  actions  which  resemble  X  in  both 
these  two  respects  at  once.  We  cannot  say 
that  any  action  Y,  whose  total  effects  are 
precisely  similar  to  those  of  X,  will  also  be 
right  if  X  is  right.  It  is  absolutely  essential 
that  the  other  condition  should  also  be 
satisfied  ;  namely,  that  the  total  effects  of 
all  the  possible  alternatives  should  also  be 
precisely  similar  in  both  the  two  cases.  For 
if  they  were  not — if  in  the  case  of  Y,  some 
alternative  was  possible,  which  would  have 
quite  different  effects,  from  any  that  would 
have  been  produced  by  any  alternative  that 
was  possible  in  the  case  of  X — then,  according 
to  our  theory,  it  is  possible  that  the  total 
effects  of  this  other  alternative  would  be 


136 


ETHICS 


intrinsically  better  than  those  of  Y,  and  in 
that  case  Y  will  be  wrong,  even  though  its 
total  effects  are  precisely  similar  to  those 
of  X  and  X  was  right.  Both  conditions  must, 
therefore,  be  satisfied  simultaneously.  But 
our  theory  does  imply  that  any  action  which 
does  resemble  another  in  both  these  two 
respects  at  once,  must  be  right  if  the  first 
be  right,  and  wrong  if  the  first  be  wrong. 

This  is  the  precise  principle  with  which  we 
are  now  concerned.  It  may  perhaps  be 
stated  more  conveniently  in  the  form  in 
which  it  was  stated  in  the  second  chapter  : 
namely,  that  if  it  is  ever  right  to  do  an  action 
whose  total  effects  are  A  in  preference  to 
one  whose  total  effects  are  B,  it  must  always 
be  right  to  do  any  action  whose  total  effects 
are  precisely  similar  to  A  in  preference  to  one 
whose  total  effects  are  precisely  similar  to  B. 
It  is  also,  I  think,  what  is  commonly  meant 
by  saying,  simply,  that  the  question  whether 
an  action  is  right  or  wrong  always  depends 
upon  its  total  effects  or  consequences  ;  but 
this  will  not  do  as  an  accurate  statement  of 
it,  because,  as  we  shall  see,  it  may  be  heldj 
that  right  and  wrong  do,  in  a  sense,  always; 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


137 


depend  upon  an  action’s  total  consequences 
and  yet  that  this  principle  is  untrue.  It  is 
also  sometimes  expressed  by  saying  that  if 
an  action  is  once  right,  any  precisely  similar 
action,  done  in  circumstances  which  are  also 
precisely  similar  in  all  respects,  must  be 
right  too.  But  this  is  both  too  narrow  and 
too  wide.  It  is  too  narrow,  because  our 
principle  does  not  confine  itself  to  an  assertion 
about  precisely  similar  actions.  Our  principle 
asserts  that  any  action  Y,  whose  effects  are 
precisely  similar  to  those  of  another  X,  will 
be  right,  if  X  is  right,  provided  the  effects 
of  all  the  alternatives  possible  in  the  two 
cases  are  also  precisely  similar,  even  though 
Y  itself  is  not  precisely  similar  to  X,  but 
utterly  different  from  it.  And  it  is  too  wide, 
because  it  does  not  follow  from  the  fact 
that  two  actions  are  both  precisely  similar 
in  themselves  and  also  done  in  precisely 
similar  circumstances,  that  their  effects  must 
also  be  precisely  similar.  This  does,  of 
course,  follow,  so  long  as  the  laws  of  nature 
remain  the  same.  But  if  we  suppose  the 
laws  of  nature  to  change,  or  if  we  conceive  a 
Universe  in  which  different  laws  of  nature 


138 


ETHICS 


hold  from  those  which  hold  in  this  one, 
then  plainly  a  precisely  similar  action  done 
in  precisely  similar  circumstances  might  yet 
have  different  total  effects.  According  to 
our  principle,  therefore,  the  statement  that 
any  two  precisely  similar  actions,  done  in 
precisely  similar  circumstances,  must  both  be 
right,  if  one  is  right,  though  true  as  applied 
to  this  Universe,  provided  (as  is  commonly 
supposed)  the  laws  of  nature  cannot  change, 
is  not  true  absolutely  unconditionally .  But 
our  principle  asserts  absolutely  unconditionally 
that  if  it  is  once  right  to  prefer  a  set  of  total 
effects  A  to  another  set  B,  it  must  always, 
in  any  conceivable  Universe,  be  right  to 
prefer  a  set  precisely  similar  to  A  to  a  set 

precisely  similar  to  B. 

This,  then,  is  a  second  very  fundamental 
principle,  which  our  theory  asserts — a  prin¬ 
ciple  which  is,  in  a  sense,  concerned  with 
classes  of  actions,  and  not  merely  with 
particular  actions.  And  in  asserting  this 
principle  also  it  seems  to  me  that  our  theory 
is  right.  But  many  different  views  have 
been  held,  which,  while  admitting  that  one 
and  the  same  action  cannot  be  both  right 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


139 


and  wrong,  yet  assert  or  imply  that  this 
second  principle  is  untrue  And  I  propose 
in  this  chapter  to  deal  with  those  among 
them  which  resemble  the  theories  dealt  with 
in  the  last  chapter  in  one  particular  respect 
— namely,  that  they  depend  upon  some  view 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  w^ord  “  right  ”  or 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  44  good.” 

And,  first  of  all,  we  may  briefly  mention 
a  theory,  which  is  very  similar  to  some  of 
those  dealt  with  in  the  last  chapter  and 
which  is,  I  think,  often  confused  with  them, 
but  which  yet  differs  from  them  in  one  very 
important  respect.  This  is  the  theory  that 
to  say  that  an  action  is  right  or  wrong  is 
the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  a  majority 
of  all  mankind  have,  more  often  than  not, 
some  particular  feeling  (or  absence  of  feeling) 
towards  actions  of  the  class  to  which  it 
belongs.  This  theory  differs  from  those 
considered  in  the  last  chapter,  because  it 
does  not  imply  that  one  and  the  same  action 
ever  actually  is  both  right  and  wrong.  For, 
however  much  the  feelings  of  different  men 
and  different  societies  may  differ  at  different 
times,  yet,  if  we  take  strictly  a  majority  of 


140 


ETHICS 


all  mankind  at  all  times  past,  present  and 
future,  any  class  of  action  which  is,  for 
instance,  generally  approved  by  such  an 
absolute  majority  of  all  mankind,  will  not 
also  be  disapproved  by  an  absolute  majority 
of  all  mankind,  although  it  may  be  dis¬ 
approved  by  a  majority  of  any  one  society, 
or  by  a  majority  of  all  the  men  living  at  any 
one  period.  This  proposal,  therefore,  to  say 
that,  when  we  assert  an  action  to  be  right 
or  wrong,  we  are  making  an  assertion  about 
the  feelings  of  an  absolute  majority  of  all 
mankind  does  not  conflict  with  the  principle 
that  one  and  the  same  action  cannot  be 
both  right  and  wrong.  It  allows  us  to  say 
that  any  particular  action  always  is  either 
right  or  wrong,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
different  men  and  different  societies  may 
feel  differently  towards  actions  of  that  class 
at  the  same  or  different  times.  What  it  does 
conflict  with  is  the  principle  we  are  now 
considering.  Since  it  implies  that  if  a 
majority  of  mankind  did  not  happen  to  have 
a  particular  feeling  towards  actions  of  one 
class  A,  it  would  not  be  right  to  prefer  actions 
of  this  class  to  those  of  another  class  B, 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


141 


even  though  the  effects  of  A  and  B,  re¬ 
spectively,  might  be  precisely  similar  to 
what  they  now  are.  It  implies,  that  is  to  say, 
that  in  a  Universe  in  which  there  were  no  men, 
or  in  which  the  feelings  of  the  majority  were 
different  from  what  they  are  in  this  one,  it 
might  not  be  right  to  prefer  one  total  set  of 
effects  A  to  another  B,  even  though  in  this 
Universe  it  is  always  right  to  prefer  them. 

Now  I  do  not  know  if  this  theory  has  ever 
been  expressly  held  ;  but  some  philosophers 
have  certainly  argued  as  if  it  were  true. 
Great  pains  have,  for  instance,  been  taken 
to  show  that  mankind  are,  in  general,  pleased 
with  actions  which  lead  to  a  maximum  of 
pleasure,  and  displeased  with  those  which 
lead  to  less  than  a  maximum ;  and  the 
proof  that  this  is  so  has  been  treated  as  if 
it  were,  at  the  same  time,  a  proof  that  it  is 
always  right  to  do  what  leads  to  a  maximum 
of  pleasure,  and  wrong  to  do  what  leads  to 
less  than  a  maximum.  But  obviously,  unless 
to  show  that  mankind  are  generally  pleased 
with  a  particular  sort  of  action  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  show  that  that  sort  of  action  is 
always  right,  some  independent  proof  is 


142 


ETHICS 


needed  to  show  that  what  mankind  are 
generally  pleased  with  is  always  right.  And 
some  of  those  who  have  used  this  argument 
do  not  seem  to  have  seen  that  any  such 
proof  is  needed.  So  soon  as  we  recognise 
quite  clearly  that  to  say  that  an  action  is 
right  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that 
mankind  are  generally  pleased  with  it,  it 
becomes  obvious  that  to  show  that  mankind 
are  generally  pleased  with  a  particular  sort  of 
action  is  not  sufficient  to  show  that  it  is  right. 
And  hence  it  is,  I  think,  fair  to  say  that  those 
who  have  argued  as  if  it  were  sufficient,  have 
argued  as  if  to  say  that  an  action  is  right  were 
the  same  thing  as  saying  that  mankind  are 
generally  pleased  with  it ;  although,  perhaps, 
if  this  assumption  had  been  expressly  put 
before  them,  they  would  have  rejected  it. 

We  may  therefore  say,  I  think,  that  the 
theory  that  to  call  an  action  right  or  wrong 
is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  an  absolute 
majority  of  all  mankind  have  some  particular 
feeling  (or  absence  of  feeling)  towards  actions 
of  that  kind,  has  often  been  assumed,  even 
if  it  has  not  been  expressly  held.  And  it 
is,  therefore,  perhaps  worth  while  to  point 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


143 


out  that  it  is  exposed  to  exactly  the  same 
objection  as  two  of  the  theories  dealt  with 
in  the  last  chapter.  The  objection  is  that 
it  is  quite  certain,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that 
a  man  may  have  no  doubt  that  an  action 
is  right,  even  where  he  does  doubt  whether 
an  absolute  majority  of  all  mankind  have 
a  particular  feeling  (or  absence  of  feeling) 
towards  it,  no  matter  what  feeling  we  take. 
And  what  this  shows  is  that,  whatever  he 
is  thinking,  when  he  thinks  the  action  to  be 
right,  he  is  not  merely  thinking  that  a  majority 
of  mankind  have  any  particular  feeling 
towards  it.  Even,  therefore,  if  it  be  true 
that  what  is  approved  or  liked  by  an  absolute 
majority  of  mankind  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact , 
always  right  (and  this  we  are  not  disputing), 
it  is  quite  certain  that  to  say  that  it  is  right 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  is  thus 
approved.  And  with  this  we  come  to  the 
end  of  a  certain  type  of  theories  with  regard 
to  the  meaning  of  the  words  “  right  ”  and 
“wrong.”  We  are  now  entitled  to  the  con¬ 
clusion  that,  whatever  the  meaning  of  these 
words  may  be,  it  is  not  identical  with  any 
assertion  whatever  about  either  the  feelings  or 


144 


ETHICS 


the  thoughts  of  men — neither  those  of  any  par¬ 
ticular  man,  nor  those  of  any  particular  society, 
nor  those  of  some  man  or  other,  nor  those  of 
mankind  as  a  whole.  To  predicate  of  an  action 
that  it  is  right  or  wrong  is  to  predicate  of  it 
something  quite  different  from  the  mere  fact 
that  any  man  or  set  of  men  have  any  par¬ 
ticular  feeling  towards,  or  opinion  about,  it. 

But  there  are  some  philosophers  who,  while 
feeling  the  strongest  objection  to  the  view  that 
one  and  the  same  action  can  ever  be  both  right 
and  wrong,  and  also  to  any  view  which  implies 
that  the  question  whether  an  action  is  right 
or  wrong  depends  in  any  way  upon  what  men 
— even  the  majority  of  men — actually  feel  or 
think  about  it,  yet  seem  to  be  so  strongly 
convinced  that  to  call  an  action  right  must  be 
merely  to  make  an  assertion  about  the  attitude 
of  som£beingtowardsit,that  they  have  adopted 
the  view  that  there  is  some  being  other  than 
any  man  or  set  of  men,  whose  attitude  towards 
the  same  action  or  class  of  actions  never 
changes,  and  that,  when  we  assert  actions  to 
be  right  or  wrong,  what  we  are  doing  is  merely 
to  make  an  assertion  about  the  attitude  of 
this  non-human  being.  And  theories  of 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS  145 

this  type  are  the  next  which  I  wish  to 
consider. 

Those  who  have  held  some  theory  of  this 
type  have,  I  think,  generally  held  that  what 
we  mean  by  calling  an  action  right  or  wrong 
is  not  that  the  non-human  being  in  question 
has  or  has  not  some  feeling  towards  actions 
of  the  class  to  which  it  belongs,  but  that  it 
has  or  has  not  towards  them  one  of  the  mental 
attitudes  which  we  call  willing  or  commanding 
or  forbidding  ;  a  kind  of  mental  attitude  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar,  and  which  is  not 
generally  classed  under  the  head  of  feelings, 
but  under  a  quite  separate  head.  To  forbid 
actions  of  a  certain  class  is  the  same  thing  as 
to  will  or  command  that  they  should  not  be 
done.  And  the  view  generally  held  is,  I 
think,  that  to  say  that  an  action  ought  to  be 
done,  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  belongs 
to  a  class  which  the  non-human  being  wills 
or  commands  ;  to  say  that  it  is  right ,  is  to  say 
that  it  belongs  to  a  class  which  the  non-human 
being  does  not  forbid  ;  and  to  say  that  it  is 
wrong  or  ought  not  to  be  done  is  to  say  that 
it  belongs  to  a  class  which  the  non-human 
being  does  forbid.  All  assertions  about  right 


146 


ETHICS 


and  wrong  are,  accordingly,  by  theories  of 
this  type,  identified  with  assertions  about  the 
will  of  some  non-human  being.  And  there 
are  two  obvious  reasons  why  we  should  hold 
that,  if  judgments  of  right  and  wrong  are 
judgments  about  any  mental  attitude  at  all, 
they  are  judgments  about  the  mental  attitude 
which  we  call  willing ,  rather  than  about  any 
of  those  which  we  call  feelings. 

The  first  is  that  the  notion  which  we  express 
by  the  word  44  right  ”  seems  to  be  obviously 
closely  connected  with  that  which  we  express 
by  the  word  “  ought,”  in  the  manner  ex¬ 
plained  in  Chapter  I  (pp.  31-39) ;  and  that  there 
are  many  usages  of  language  which  seem  to 
suggest  that  the  word  “  ought  ”  expresses  a 
command.  The  very  name  of  the  Ten  Com¬ 
mandments  is  a  familiar  instance,  and  so  is 
the  language  in  which  they  are  expressed. 
Everybody  understands  these  Command¬ 
ments  as  assertions  to  the  effect  that  certain 
actions  ought ,  and  that  others  ought  not  to  be 
done.  But  yet  they  are  called  44  Command - 
ments ,”  and  if  we  look  at  what  they  actually 
say  we  find  such  expressions  as  44  Thou  shalt 
do  no  murder,”  44  Thou  shalt  not  steal  ” — 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


147 


expressions  which  are  obviously  equivalent 
to  the  imperatives,  “Do  no  murder,”  44  Do 
not  steal,”  and  which  strictly,  therefore, 
should  express  commands.  For  this  reason 
alone  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose  that  the 
word  44  ought  ”  always  expresses  a  command. 
And  there  is  yet  another  reason  in  favour  of 
the  same  supposition — namely,  that  the  fact 
that  actions  of  a  certain  class  ought  or  ought 
not  to  be  done  is  often  called  44  a  moral  law,” 
a  name  which  naturally  suggests  that  such 
facts  are  in  some  way  analogous  to  44  laws,” 
in  the  legal  sense — the  sense  in  which  we  talk 
of  the  laws  of  England  or  of  any  other  country. 
But  if  we  look  to  see  what  is  meant  by  saying 
that  any  given  thing  is,  in  this  sense,  44  part 
of  the  law  ”  of  a  given  community,  there  are 
a  good  many  facts  in  favour  of  the  view  that 
nothing  can  be  part  of  the  law  of  any  com¬ 
munity,  unless  it  has  either  itself  been  willed 
by  some  person  or  persons  having  the  neces¬ 
sary  authority  over  that  community,  or  can 
be  deduced  from  something  which  has  been 
so  willed.  It  is,  indeed,  not  at  all  an  easy 
thing  to  define  what  is  meant  by  44  having  the 
necessary  authority ,”  or,  in  other  words,  to  say 


148 


ETHICS 


in  what  relation  a  person  or  set  of  persons 
must  stand  to  a  community,  if  it  is  to  be  true 
that  nothing  can  be  a  law  of  that  community 
except  what  these  persons  have  willed,  or  what 
can  be  deduced  from  something  which  they 
have  willed.  But  still  it  may  be  true  that 
there  always  is  some  person  or  set  of  persons 
whose  will  or  consent  is  necessary  to  make  a 
law  a  law.  And  whether  this  is  so  or  not,  it 
does  seem  to  be  the  case  that  every  law, 
which  is  the  law  of  any  community,  is,  in 
a  certain  sense,  dependent  upon  the  human 
will.  This  is  true  in  the  sense  that,  in  the 
case  of  every  law  whatever,  there  always  are 
some  men,  who,  by  performing  certain  acts 
of  will,  could  make  it  cease  to  be  the  law  ; 
and  also  that,  in  the  case  of  anything  what¬ 
ever  which  is  not  the  law,  there  always  are 
some  men,  who,  by  performing  certain  acts 
of  will,  could  make  it  be  the  law  :  though,  of 
course,  any  given  set  of  men  who  could  effect 
the  change  in  the  case  of  some  laws,  could 
very  often  not  effect  it  in  the  case  of  others, 
but  in  their  case  another  set  of  men  would  be 
required  :  and,  of  course,  in  some  cases  the 
number  of  men  whose  co-operation  would  be 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


149 


required  would  be  very  large.  It  does  seem, 
therefore,  as  if  laws,  in  the  legal  sense,  were 
essentially  dependent  on  the  human  will ;  and 
this  fact  naturally  suggests  that  moral  laws 
also  are  dependent  on  the  will  of  some  being. 

These  are,  I  think,  the  two  chief  reasons 
which  have  led  people  to  suppose  that  moral 
judgments  are  judgments  about  the  will, 
rather  than  about  the  feelings ,  of  some  being 
or  beings.  And  there  are,  of  course,  the  same 
objections  to  supposing,  in  the  case  of  moral 
laws,  that  the  being  or  beings  in  question  can 
be  any  man  or  set  of  men,  as  there  are  to  the 
supposition  that  judgments  about  right  and 
wrong  can  be  merely  judgments  about  men  s 
feelings  and  opinions.  In  this  way,  there¬ 
fore,  there  has  naturally  arisen  the  view  we 
are  now  considering — the  view  that  to  say  of 
an  action  that  it  ought  to  be  done,  or  is  right, 
or  ought  not  to  be  done,  is  the  same  thing 
as  to  say  that  it  belongs  to  a  class  of  actions 
which  has  been  commanded,  or  permitted, 
or  forbidden  by  some  non-human  being. 
Different  views  have,  of  course,  been  taken 
as  to  who  or  what  the  non-human  being  is. 
One  of  the  simplest  is  that  it  is  God  :  that 


150 


ETHICS 


is  to  say,  that,  when  we  call  an  action  wrong, 
we  mean  to  say  that  God  has  forbidden  it. 
But  other  philosophers  have  supposed  that 
it  is  a  being  which  may  be  called  44  Reason,” 
or  one  called  44  The  Practical  Reason,”  or  one 
called  44  The  Pure  Will,”  or  one  called  44  The 
Universal  Will,”  or  one  called  44  The  True 
Self.”  In  some  cases,  the  beings  called  by 
these  names  have  been  supposed  to  be  merely 
44  faculties  ”  of  the  human  mind,  or  some 
other  entity,  resident  in,  or  forming  a  part  of, 
the  minds  of  all  men.  And,  where  this  is 
the  case,  it  may  seem  unfair  to  call  these 
supposed  entities  44  non-human.”  But  all 
that  I  mean  by  calling  them  this  is  to  em¬ 
phasise  the  fact  that  even  if  they  are  faculties 
of,  or  entities  resident  in,  the  human  mind, 
they  are,  at  least,  not  human  beings — that  is 
to  say,  they  are  not  men — either  any  one 
particular  man  or  any  set  of  men.  For 
ex  hypothesi  they  are  beings  which  can  never 
will  what  is  wrong,  whereas  it  is  admitted 
that  all  men  can,  and  sometimes  do,  will  what 
is  wrong.  No  doubt  sometimes,  when  philo¬ 
sophers  speak  as  if  they  believed  in  the 
existence  of  beings  of  this  kind,  they  are 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


151 


speaking  metaphorically  and  do  not  really 
hold  any  such  belief.  Thus  a  philosopher 
may  often  speak  of  an  ethical  truth  as  44  a 
dictate  of  Reason,”  without  really  meaning 
to  imply  that  there  is  any  faculty  or  part  of 
our  mind  which  invariably  leads  us  right  and 
never  leads  us  wrong.  But  I  think  there  is 
no  doubt  that  such  language  is  not  always 
metaphorical.  The  view  is  held  that  when¬ 
ever  I  judge  truly  or  will  rightly,  there  really 
is  a  something  in  me  which  does  these  things 
— the  same  something  on  every  different 
occasion ;  and  that  this  something  never  judges 
falsely  or  wills  wrongly  :  so  that,  when  I  judge 
falsely  and  will  wrongly,  it  is  a  different 
something  in  me  which  does  so. 

Now  it  may  seem  to  many  people  that 
the  most  serious  objection  to  views  of  this 
kind  is  that  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  extremely 
doubtful  whether  there  is  any  being,  such 
as  they  suppose  to  exist — any  being,  who 
never  wills  what  is  wrong  but  always  only 
what  is  right  ;  and  I  think  myself  that,  in  all 
probability,  there  is  no  such  being— neither 
a  God,  nor  any  being  such  as  philosophers 
have  called  by  the  names  I  have  mentioned. 


152 


ETHICS 


But  adequately  to  discuss  the  reasons  for 
and  against  supposing  that  there  is  one  would 
take  us  far  too  long.  And  fortunately  it 
is  unnecessary  for  our  present  purpose ; 
since  the  only  question  we  need  to  answer 
is  whether,  even  supposing  there  is  such  a 
being,  who  commands  all  that  ought  to  be 
done  and  only  what  ought  to  be  done,  and 
forbids  all  that  is  wrong  and  only  what  is 
wrong,  what  we  mean  by  saying  that  an 
action  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done  can 
possibly  be  merely  that  this  being  commands 
it  or  forbids  it.  And  it  seems  to  me  there 
is  a  conclusive  argument  against  supposing 
that  this  can  be  all  that  we  mean,  even  if 
there  really  is,  in  fact,  such  a  being. 

The  argument  is  simply  that,  whether 
there  is  such  a  being  or  not,  there  certainly 
are  many  people  who  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  one,  and  that  such  people,  in  spite 
of  not  believing  in  its  existence,  can  never¬ 
theless  continue  to  believe  that  actions  are 
right  and  wrong.  But  this  would  be  quite 
impossible  if  the  view  we  are  considering 
were  true.  According  to  that  view,  to 
believe  that  an  action  is  wrong  is  the  same 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


153 


thing  as  to  believe  that  it  is  forbidden  by 
one  of  these  non-human  beings ;  so  that 
any  one  whatever  who  ever  does  believe  that 
an  action  is  wrong  is,  ijpso  facto,  believing  in 
the  existence  of  such  a  being.  It  maintains, 
therefore,  that  everybody  who  believes  that 
actions  are  right  or  wrong  does,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  believe  in  the  existence  of  one  of 
these  beings.  And  this  contention  seems 
to  be  plainly  contrary  to  fact.  It  might, 
indeed,  be  urged  that  when  we  say  there  are 
some  people  who  do  not  believe  in  any  of 
these  beings,  all  that  is  really  true  is  that 
there  are  some  people  who  think  they  do  not 
believe  in  them  ;  while,  in  fact,  everybody 
really  does.  But  it  is  surely  impossible 
seriously  to  maintain  that,  in  all  cases,  they 
are  so  mistaken  as  to  the  nature  of  their  own 
beliefs.  But  if  so,  then  it  follows  absolutely 
that  even  if  wrong  actions  always  are  in  fact 
forbidden  by  some  non-human  being,  yet 
to  say  that  they  are  wrong  is  not  identical 
with  saying  that  they  are  so  forbidden. 

And  it  is  important  also,  as  an  argument 
against  views  of  this  class,  to  insist  upon  the 
reason  why  they  contradict  the  principle 


154 


ETHICS 


which  we  are  considering  in  this  chapter. 
They  contradict  this  principle,  because  they 
imply  that  there  is  absolutely  no  class  of 
actions  of  which  we  can  say  that  it  always 
would ,  in  any  conceivable  Universe,  be  right 
or  wrong.  They  imply  this  because  they 
imply  that  if  the  non-human  being,  whom 
they  suppose  to  exist,  did  not  exist,  nothing 
would  be  right  or  wrong.  Thus,  for  instance, 
if  it  is  held  that  to  call  an  action  wrong  is 
the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  is  forbidden 
by  God,  it  will  follow  that,  if  God  did  not 
exist,  nothing  would  be  wrong ;  and  hence 
that  we  cannot  possibly  hold  that  God  forbids 
what  is  wrong,  because  it  is  wrong.  We 
must  hold,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  wrong¬ 
ness  of  what  is  wrong  consists  simply  and 
solely  in  the  fact  that  God  does  forbid  it — 
a  view  to  which  many  even  of  those,  who 
believe  that  what  is  wrong  is  in  fact  forbidden 
by  God,  will  justly  feel  an  objection. 

For  these  reasons,  it  seems  to  me,  we  may 
finally  conclude  that,  when  we  assert  any 
action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  we  are  not 
merely  making  an  assertion  about  the 
attitude  of  mind  towards  it  of  any  being  or 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


155 


set  of  beings  whatever — no  matter  what 
attitude  of  mind  we  take  to  be  the  one  in 
question,  whether  one  of  feeling  or  thinking 
or  willing,  and  no  matter  what  being  or 
beings  we  take,  whether  human  or  non¬ 
human  :  and  that  hence  no  proof  to  the 
effect  that  any  particular  being  or  set  of 
beings  has  or  has  not  a  particular  attitude 
of  mind  towards  an  action  is  sufficient  to 
prove  that  the  action  really  is  right  or  wrong. 
But  there  are  many  philosophers  who  fully 
admit  this — who  admit  that  the  predicates 
which  we  denote  by  the  words  “  right  ”  and 
“  wrong  ”  do  not  consist  in  the  having  of 
any  relation  whatever  to  any  being’s  feelings 
or  thoughts  or  will ;  and  who  will  even  go 
further  than  this  and  admit  that  the  question 
whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong  does 
depend,  in  a  sense,  solely  upon  its  con¬ 
sequences,  namely,  in  the  sense,  that  no 
action  ever  can  be  right,  if  it  was  possible 
for  the  agent  to  do  something  else  which 
would  have  had  better  total  consequences  ; 
but  who,  while  admitting  all  this,  nevertheless 
maintain  that  to  call  one  set  of  consequences 
better  than  another  is  the  same  thing  as  to 


156 


ETHICS 


say  that  the  one  set  is  related  to  some  mind 
or  minds  in  a  way  in  which  the  other  is  not 
related.  That  is  to  say,  while  admitting 
that  to  call  an  action  right  or  wrong  is  not 
merely  to  assert  that  some  particular  mental 
attitude  is  taken  up  towards  it,  they  hold 
that  to  call  a  thing  “good”  or  “bad”  is 
merely  to  assert  this.  And  of  course,  if  it 
be  true  that  no  action  ever  can  be  right 
unless  its  total  effects  are  as  good  as  possible, 
then  this  view  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  words 
“  good  ”  and  “  bad  ”  will  contradict  the 
principle  we  are  considering  in  this  chapter 
as  effectively  as  if  the  corresponding  view 
be  held  about  the  meaning  of  the  words 
“  right  ”  and  “  wrong.”  For  if,  in  saying 
that  one  set  of  effects  A  is  better  than  another 
B  we  merely  mean  to  say  that  A  has  a  relation 
to  some  mind  or  minds  which  B  has  not  got, 
then  it  will  follow  that  a  set  of  effects  pre¬ 
cisely  similar  to  A  will  not  be  better  than  a 
set  precisely  similar  to  B,  if  they  do  not  happen 
to  have  the  required  relations  to  any  mind. 
And  hence  it  will  follow  that  even  though,  on 
one  occasion  or  in  one  Universe,  it  is  right  to 
prefer  A  to  B,  yet,  on  another  "occasion  or 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


157 


in  another  Universe,  it  may  quite  easily  not 
be  right  to  prefer  a  set  of  effects  precisely 
similar  to  A  to  a  set  precisely  similar  to  B. 

For  this  reason,  the  view  that  the  meaning 
of  the  words  “  good  ”  and  “  bad  ”  is  merely 
that  some  being  has  some  mental  attitude 
towards  the  thing  so  called,  may  constitute 
a  fatal  objection  to  the  principle  which  we 
are  considering.  It  will,  indeed,  only  do  so, 
if  we  admit  that  it  must  always  be  right  to 
do  what  has  the  best  possible  total  effects. 
But  it  may  be  held  that  this  is  self-evident, 
and  many  persons,  who  hold  this  view  with 
regard  to  the  meaning  of  “  good  ”  and 
“  bad  ”  would,  I  think,  be  inclined  to  admit 
that  it  is  so.  Hence  it  becomes  important 
to  consider  this  new  objection  to  our  principle. 

This  view  that  by  calling  a  thing  “  good  ” 
or  “  bad  ”  we  merely  mean  that  some  being 
or  beings  have  a  certain  mental  attitude 
towards  it,  has  been  even  more  commonly 
held  than  the  corresponding  view  with 
regard  to  “  right  ”  and  “  wrong  ”  ;  and  it 
may  be  held  in  as  many  different  forms. 
Thus  it  may  beltield  that  to  say  that  a  thing 
is  “  good  ”  is  the  same  thing  .as  to  say  that 


158 


ETHICS 


somebody  thinks  it  is  good — a  view  which 
may  be  refuted  by  the  same  general  argu¬ 
ment  which  was  used  in  the  case  of  the 
corresponding  view  about  “  right  ”  and 
“  wrong.”  Again  it  may  be  held  that  each 
man  when  he  calls  a  thing  “  good  ”  or  “  bad  ” 
merely  means  that  he  himself  thinks  it  to 
be  so  or  has  some  feeling  towards  it ;  a 
view  from  which  it  will  follow,  as  in  the 
case  of  right  and  wrong,  that  no  two  men 
can  ever  differ  in  opinion  as  to  whether  a 
thing  is  good  or  bad.  Again,  also,  in  most 
of  the  forms,  in  which  it  can  be  held,  it 
will  certainly  follow  that  one  and  the  same 
thing  can  be  both  good  and  bad ;  since, 
whatever  pair  of  mental  attitudes  or  single 
mental  attitude  we  take,  it  seems  as  certain 
here,  as  in  the  case  of  right  and  wrong,  that 
different  men  will  sometimes  have  different 
mental  attitudes  towards  the  same  thing. 
This  has,  however,  been  very  often  disputed 
in  the  case  of  one  particular  mental  attitude, 
which  deserves  to  be  specially  mentioned. 

One  of  the  chief  differences  between  the 
views  which  have  been  held'  with  regard  to 
the  meaning  of  “  good  ”  and  “  bad,”  and 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


159 


those  which  have  been  held  with  regard  to 
the  meaning  of  “  right  ”  and  44  wrong,”  is 
that  in  the  former  case  it  has  been  very 
often  held  that  what  we  mean  by  calling 
a  thing  44  good  ”  is  that  it  is  desired ,  or 
desired  in  some  particular  way  ;  and  this 
attitude  of  44  desire  ”  is  one  that  I  did  not 
mention  in  the  case  of  44  right  ”  and  44  wrong  ” 
because,  so  far  as  I  know,  nobody  has  ever 
held  that  to  call  an  action  4  4  right  ”  is  the 
same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  is  desired.  But 
the  commonest  of  all  views  with  regard  to 
the  meaning  of  the  word  44  good,”  is  that 
to  call  a  thing  good  is  to  say  that  it  is 
desired,  or  desired  for  its  own  sake  ;  and 
curiously  enough  this  view  has  been  used  as 
an  argument  in  favour  of  the  very  theory 
stated  in  our  first  two  chapters,  on  the 
ground  that  no  man  ever  desires  (or  desires 
for  its  own  sake)  anything  at  all  except 
pleasure  (or  his  own  pleasure),  and  that 
hence,  since  44  good  ”  means  44  desired,”  any 
set  of  effects  which  contains  more  pleasure 
must  always  be  better  than  one  which 
contains  less.  Of  course,  even  if  it  were  true 
that  no  man  ever  desires  anything  except 


160 


ETHICS 


pleasure,  it  would  not  really  follow,  as 
this  argument  assumes,  that  a  whole!  which 
contains  more  pleasure  must  always  be 
better  than  one  which  contains  less.  On 
the  contrary,  the  very  opposite  would 
follow  ;  since  it  would  follow  that  if  any 
beings  did  happen  to  desire  something 
other  than  pleasure  (and  we  can  easily 
conceive  that  some  might)  then  wholes 
which  contained  more  pleasure  might  easily 
not  always  be  better  than  those  which 
contained  less.  But  it  is  now  generally 
recognised  that  it  is  a  complete  mistake  to 
suppose  even  that  men  desire  nothing  but 
pleasure,  or  even  that  they  desire  nothing 
else  for  its  own  sake.  And,  whether  it  is  so  or 
not,  the  question  is  irrelevant  to  our  present 
purpose,  which  is  to  find  some  quite  general 
arguments  to  show  that  to  call  a  thing  “  good  ” 
is,  in  any  case,  not  the  same  thing  as  merely 
to  say  that  it  is  desired  or  desired  for  its  own 
sake,  nor  yet  that  any  other  mental  attitude 
whatever  is  taken  up  towards  it.  What 
arguments  can  we  find  to  show  this  ? 

One  point  should  be  carefully  noticed  to 
begin  with  ;  namely,  that  we  have  no  need 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


161 


to  show  that  when  we  call  a  thing  “  good  ” 
we  never  mean  simply  that  somebody  has 
some  mental  attitude  towards  it.  There  are 
many  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  word 
“  &ood  ”  is  ambiguous — that  we  use  it  in 
different  senses  on  different  occasions  ;  and, 
if  so,  it  is  quite  possible  that,  in  some  of  its 
uses,  it  should  stand  merely  for  the  assertion 
that  somebody  has  some  feeling  or  some 
other  mental  attitude  towards  the  thing 
called  good,”  although,  in  other  uses,  it 
does  not.  We  are  not,  therefore,  concerned 
to  show  that  it  may  not  sometimes  merely 
stand  foi  this  j  all  that  we  need  to  show  is 
that  sometimes  it  does  not.  For  what  we 
have  to  do  is  merely  to  meet  the  argument 
that,  if  we  assert,  “  It  would  always  be 
wrong  to  prefer  a  worse  set  of  total  conse¬ 
quences  to  a  better ,”  we  must ,  in  this  pro¬ 
position,  mean  merely  by  “  worse  ”  and 
“  better,”  consequences  to  which  a  certain 
mental  attitude  is  taken  up — a  conclusion 
from  which  it  would  follow  that,  even 
though  a  set  of  consequences  A  was  once 
better  than  a  set  B,  a  set  precisely  similar 
to  A  would  not  always  necessarily  be  better 

F 


162 


ETHICS 


than  a  set  precisely  similar  to  B.  And 
obviously  all  that  we  need  to  do,  to  show 
this,  is  to  show  that  some  sense  can  be  given  to 
the  words  46  better  ”  and  44  worse,”  quite  other 
than  this;  or,  in  other  words,  that  to  call  a  thing 
“good”  does  not  always  mean  merely  that 
some  mental  attitude  is  taken  up  towards  it. 

It  will  be  best,  therefore,  in  order  to  make 
the  problem  definite,  to  concentrate  attention 
upon  one  particular  usage  of  the  word,  in 
which  it  seems  clearly  not  to  mean  this.  And 
I  will  take  as  an  example  that  usage  in  which 
we  make  judgments  of  what  was  called  in 
Chapter  II  44  intrinsic  value  ”  ;  that  is  to  say, 
where  we  judge,  concerning  a  particular  state 
of  things  that  it  would  be  worth  while — would 
be  44  a  good  thing  ” — that  that  state  of 
things  should  exist,  even  if  nothing  else  were 
to  exist  besides ,  either  at  the  same  time  or 
afterwards.  We  do  not,  of  course,  so  con¬ 
stantly  make  judgments  of  this  kind,  as  we 
do  some  other  judgments  about  the  goodness 
of  things.  But  we  certainly  can  make  them, 
and  it  seems  quite  clear  that  we  mean  some¬ 
thing  by  them.  We  can  consider  with  regard 
to  any  particular  state  of  things  whether  it 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


163 


would  be  worth  while  that  it  should  exist, 
even  if  there  were  absolutely  nothing  else  in 
the  Universe  besides ;  whether,  for  instance, 
it  would  have  been  worth  while  that  the  Uni¬ 
verse,  as  it  has  existed  up  till  now,  should 
have  existed,  even  if  absolutely  nothing  were  to 
follow,  but  its  existence  were  to  be  cut  short  at 
the  present  moment :  we  can  consider  whether 
the  existence  of  such  a  Universe  would  have 
been  better  than  nothing,  or  whether  it  would 
have  been  just  as  good  that  nothing  at  all 
should  ever  have  existed.  In  the  case  of  such 
judgments  as  these  it  seems  to  me  there  are 
strong  reasons  for  holding  that  we  are  not 
merely  making  an  assertion  either  about  our 
own  or  about  anybody  else’s  attitude  of  mind 
towards  the  state  of  things  in  question.  And 
if  we  can  show  this,  in  this  one  case,  that  is 
sufficient  for  our  purpose. 

What,  then,  are  the  reasons  for  holding  it  ? 

I  think  we  should  distinguish  two  different 
cases,  according  to  the  kind  of  attitude  of 
mind  about  which  it  is  supposed  that  we  are 
making  an  assertion. 

If  it  is  held  that  what  we  are  asserting 
is  merely  that  the  state  of  things  in  question 


164 


ETHICS 


is  one  that  we  or  somebody  else  is  pleased 
at  the  idea  of,  or  one  that  is  or  would  be 
desired  or  desired  for  its  own  sake  (and  these 
are  the  views  that  seem  to  be  most  com¬ 
monly  held),  the  following  argument  seems 
to  me  to  be  conclusive  against  all  views  of 
this  type.  Namely,  a  man  certainly  can 
believe  with  regard  to  a  given  thing  or  state 
of  things,  that  the  idea  of  it  does  please 
somebody,  and  is  desired,  and  even  desired 
for  its  own  sake,  and  yet  not  believe  that  it 
would  be  at  all  worth  while  that  it  should 
exist,  if  it  existed  quite  alone.  He  may 
even  believe  that  it  would  be  a  positively 
bad  thing  —  worse  than  nothing  —  that  it 
should  exist  quite  alone,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  knows  that  it  is  desired  and  strongly 
desired  for  its  own  sake,  even  by  himself. 
That  some  men  can  and  do  make  such 
judgments — that  they  can  and  do  judge  that 
things  which  they  themselves  desire  or  are 
pleased  with,  are  nevertheless  intrinsically 
bad  (that  is  to  say  would  be  bad,  quite  apart 
from  their  consequences,  and  even  if  they 
existed  quite  alone)  is,  I  think,  undeniable  ; 
and  no  doubt  men  make  this  judgment  even 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


165 


more  frequently  with  regard  to  things  which 
are  desired  by  others.  And  if  this  is  so, 
then  it  shows  conclusively  that  to  judge  that 
a  thing  is  intrinsically  good  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  to  judge  that  some  man  is  pleased 
with  it  or  desires  it  or  desires  it  for  its  own 
sake.  Of  course,  it  may  be  held  that  any¬ 
body  who  makes  such  a  judgment  is  wrong  : 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  anything  whatever 
which  is  desired,  always  is  intrinsically  good. 
But  that  is  not  the  question.  We  are  not 
disputing  for  the  moment  that  this  may  be  so 
as  a  matter  of  fact.  All  that  we  are  trying  to 
show  is  that,  even  if  it  is  so,  yet,  to  say  that 
a  thing  is  intrinsically  good  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  to  say  that  it  is  desired  :  and  this 
follows  absolutely,  if  even  in  a  single  case, 
a  man  believes  that  a  thing  is  desired  and  yet 
does  not  believe  that  it  is  intrinsically  good. 

But  I  am  not  sure  that  this  argument  will 
hold  against  all  forms  in  which  the  view  might 
be  held,  although  it  does  hold  against  those 
in  which  it  is  most  commonly  held.  There 
are,  I  think,  feelings  with  regard  to  which  it 
is  much  more  plausible  to  hold  that  to  believe 
that  they  are  felt  towards  a  given  thing  is  the 


166 


ETHICS 


same  thing  as  to  believe  that  the  thing  is  in¬ 
trinsically  good,  than  it  is  to  hold  this  with 
regard  to  the  mere  feeling  of  pleasure,  or 
desire,  or  desire  of  a  thing  “  for  its  own  sake.” 
For  instance,  it  may,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  be 
true  that  there  really  is  some  very  special 
feeling  of  such  a  nature  that  any  man  who 
knows  that  he  himself  or  anybody  else  really 
feels  it  towards  any  state  of  things  cannot 
doubt  that  the  state  of  things  in  question  is 
intrinsically  good.  If  this  be  so,  then  the 
last  argument  will  not  hold  against  the  view 
that  when  we  call  a  thing  intrinsically  good 
we  may  mean  merely  that  this  special  feeling 
is  felt  towards  it.  And  against  any  such  view, 
if  it  were  held,  the  only  obvious  argument  I 
can  find  is  that  it  is  surely  plain  that,  even  if 
the  special  feeling  in  question  had  not  been 
felt  by  any  one  towards  the  given  state  of 
things,  yet  the  state  of  things  would  have 
been  intrinsically  good. 

But,  in  order  fully  to  make  plain  the  force  of 
this  argument,  it  is  necessary  to  guard  against 
one  misunderstanding,  which  is  very  com¬ 
monly  made  and  which  is  apt  to  obscure  the 
whole  question  which  we  are  now  discussing. 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


167 


That  is  to  say,  we  are  not  now  urging  that  any¬ 
thing  would  be  any  good  at  all,  unless  some¬ 
body  had  some  feeling  towards  something ;  nor 
are  we  urging  that  there  are  not  many  things, 
which  are  good,  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  and 
which  yet  would  not  be  any  good  at  all  unless 
somebody  had  some  feeling  towards  them.  On 
the  contrary,  both  these  propositions,  which 
are  very  commonly  held,  seem  to  me  to  be 
perfectly  true.  I  think  it  is  true  that  no 
whole  can  be  intrinsically  good,  unless  it  con¬ 
tains  some  feeling  towards  something  as  a 
part  of  itself  ;  and  true  also  that,  in  a  very 
important  sense  of  the  word  “good  ”  (though 
not  in  the  sense  to  which  I  have  given  the 
name  “intrinsically  good”),  many  things 
which  are  good  would  not  be  good,  unless 
somebody  had  some  feeling  towards  them. 
We  must,  therefore,  clearly  distinguish  the 
question  whether  these  things  are  so,  from  the 
question  which  we  are  now  discussing.  The 
question  we  are  now  discussing  is  merely 
whether,  granted  that  nothing  can  be  in¬ 
trinsically  good  unless  it  contains  some 
feeling,  a  thing  which  is  thus  good  and  does 
contain  this  feeling  cannot  be  good  without 


168 


ETHICS 


anybody’s  needing  to  have  another  feeling 
towards  it.  The  point  may  be  simply  illus¬ 
trated  by  taking  the  case  of  pleasure.  Let 
us  suppose,  for  the  moment,  that  nothing 
can  be  intrinsically  good  unless  it  contains 
some  pleasure,  and  that  every  whole  which 
contains  more  pleasure  than  pain  is  intrin¬ 
sically  good.  The  question  we  are  now  dis¬ 
cussing  is  merely  whether,  supposing  this  to 
be  so,  any  whole  which  did  contain  more 
pleasure  than  pain,  would  not  be  good,  even 
if  nobody  had  any  further  feeling  towards  it. 
It  seems  to  me  quite  plain  that  it  would  be 
so.  But  if  so,  then,  to  say  that  a  state  of 
things  is  intrinsically  good  cannot  possibly 
be  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  anybody  has 
any  kind  of  feeling  towards  it ,  even  though  no 
state  of  things  can  be  intrinsically  good  unless 
it  contains  some  feeling  towards  something. 

But,  after  all,  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
strongest  argument  against  any  view  which 
asserts  that  to  call  a  thing  “  good  ”  is  the 
same  thing  as  to  say  that  some  mental  attitude 
is  taken  up  towards  it,  does  not  merely  con¬ 
sist  in  the  fact  that  two  propositions  about 
“right”  and  “wrong”  are  self-evident: 


MORAL  JUDGMENTS 


169 


namely  (1)  that,  if  it  were  once  the  duty  of  any 
being,  who  knew  that  the  total  effects  of  one 
action  would  be  A,  and  those  of  another  B, 
to  choose  the  action  which  produced  A  rather 
than  that  which  produced  B,  it  must  always 
be  the  duty  of  any  being  who  had  to  choose 
between  two  actions,  one  of  which  he  knew 
would  have  total  effects  precisely  similar  to 
A  and  the  other  total  effects  precisely  similar 
to  B,  to  choose  the  former  rather  than  the 
latter,  and  (2)  that  it  must  always  be  the  duty 
of  any  being  who  had  to  choose  between  two 
actions,  one  of  which  he  knew  would  have 
better  total  effects  than  the  other,  to  choose 
the  former.  From  these  two  propositions 
taken  together  it  absolutely  follows  that  if 
one  set  of  total  effects  A  is  once  better  than 
another  B,  any  set  precisely  similar  to  A  must 
always  be  better  than  any  set  precisely  similar 
to  B.  And,  if  so,  then  “  better  ”  and  “  worse 99 
cannot  stand  for  any  relation  to  any  attitude 
of  mind  ;  since  we  cannot  be  entitled  to  say 
that  if  a  given  attitude  is  once  taken  up 
towards  A  and  B,  the  same  attitude  would 
always  necessarily  be  taken  up  towards  any 
pair  of  wholes  precisely  similar  to  A  and  B. 


CHAPTER  V 


RESULTS  THE  TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 


In  our  last  chapter  we  began  considering 
objections  to  one  very  fundamental  prin¬ 
ciple,  which  is  presupposed  by  the  theory 
stated  in  the  first  two  chapters — a  principle 
which  may  be  summed  up  in  the  two  pro¬ 
positions  (1)  that  the  question  whether  an 
action  is  right  or  wrong  always  depends  upon 
its  total  consequences,  and  (2)  that  if  it  is 
once  right  to  prefer  one  set  of  total  con¬ 
sequences,  A,  to  another  set,  B,  it  must 
always  be  right  to  prefer  any  set  precisely 
similar  to  A  to  any  set  precisely  similar  to  B. 
The  objections  to  this  principle,  which  we 
considered  in  the  last  chapter,  rested  on 
certain  views  with  regard  to  the  meaning 
of  the  words  “  right  ”  and  “  good.”  But 
there  remain  several  other  quite  independent 
objections,  which  may  be  urged  against  it 


170 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  171 


even  if  we  reject  those  views.  That  is  to 
say,  there  are  objections  which  may  and 
would  be  urged  against  it  by  many  people  who 
accept  both  of  the  two  propositions  which  I 
was  trying  to  establish  in  the  last  chapter, 
namely  (1)  that  to  call  an  action  “  right  ”  or 
“  wrong  ”  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that 
any  being  whatever  has  towards  it  any  mental 
attitude  whatever  ;  and  (2)  that  if  any  given 
whole  is  once  intrinsically  good  or  bad,  any 
whole  precisely  similar  to  it  must  always  be 
intrinsically  good  or  bad  in  precisely  the  same 
degree.  And  in  the  present  chapter  I  wish 
briefly  to  consider  what  seem  to  me  to  be  the 
most  important  of  these  remaining  objections. 

All  of  them  are  directed  against  the  view 
that  right  and  wrong  do  always  depend  upon 
an  action’s  actual  consequences  or  results. 
This  may  be  denied  for  several  different 
reasons  ;  and  I  shall  try  to  state  fairly  the 
chief  among  these  reasons,  and  to  point  out 
why  they  do  not  seem  to  be  conclusive. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  said  that,  by 
laying  down  the  principle  that  right  and 
wrong  depend  upon  consequences,  we  are 
doing  away  with  the  distinction  between 


172 


ETHICS 


what  is  a  duty  and  what  is  merely  expedient ; 
and  between  what  is  wrong  and  what  is 
merely  inexpedient.  People  certainly  do 
commonly  make  a  distinction  between  duty 
and  expediency.  And  it  may  be  said  that 
the  very  meaning  of  calling  an  action 
“  expedient  ”  is  to  say  that  it  will  produce 
the  best  consequences  possible  under  the 
circumstances.  If,  therefore,  we  also  say 
that  an  action  is  a  duty ,  whenever  and  only 
when  it  produces  the  best  possible  con¬ 
sequences,  it  may  seem  that  nothing  is  left 
to  distinguish  duty  from  expediency. 

Now,  as  against  this  objection,  it  is 
important  to  point  out,  first  of  all,  that, 
even  if  we  admit  that  to  call  an  action  ex¬ 
pedient  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it 
produces  the  best  possible  consequences,  our 
principle  still  does  not  compel  us  to  hold 
that  to  call  an  action  expedient  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  call  it  a  duty.  All  that  it  does 
compel  us  to  hold  is  that  whatever  is  ex¬ 
pedient  is  always  also  a  duty,  and  that 
whatever  is  a  duty  is  always  also  expedient. 
That  is  to  say,  it  does  maintain  that  duty 
and  expediency  coincide ;  but  it  does  not 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  173 


maintain  that  the  meaning  of  the  two  words 
is  the  same.  It  is,  indeed,  quite  plain,  I 
think,  that  the  meaning  of  the  two  words  is 
not  the  same  ;  for,  if  it  were,  then  it  would 
be  a  mere  tautology  to  say  that  it  is  always 
our  duty  to  do  what  will  have  the  best 
possible  consequences.  Our  theory  does  not, 
therefore,  do  away  with  the  distinction 
between  the  meaning  of  the  words  “  duty  ” 
and  “  expediency  ”  ;  it  only  maintains  that 
both  will  always  apply  to  the  same  actions. 

But,  no  doubt,  what  is  meant  by  many 
who  urge  this  objection  is  to  deny  this. 
What  they  mean  to  say  is  not  merely  that 
to  call  an  action  expedient  is  a  different 
thing  from  calling  it  a  duty,  but  also  that 
sometimes  what  is  expedient  is  wrong ,  and 
what  is  a  duty  is  inexpedient.  This  is  a 
view  which  is  undoubtedly  often  held ; 
people  often  speak  as  if  there  often  were  an 
actual  conflict  between  duty  and  expediency. 
But  many  of  the  cases  in  which  it  would  be 
commonly  held  that  there  is  such  a  conflict 
may,  I  think,  be  explained  by  supposing 
that  when  we  call  an  action  “  expedient  ” 
we  do  not  always  mean  quite  strictly  that 


174 


ETHICS 


its  total  consequences,  taking  absolutely 
everything  into  account,  are  the  best  possible. 
It  is  by  no  means  clear  that  we  do  always 
mean  this.  We  may,  perhaps,  sometimes 
mean  merely  that  the  action  is  expedient  for 
some  particular  purpose ;  and  sometimes 
that  it  is  expedient  in  the  interests  of  the 
agent,  though  not  so  on  the  whole.  But  if 
we  only  mean  this,  our  theory,  of  course, 
does  not  compel  us  to  maintain  that  the 
expedient  is  always  a  duty,  and  duty  always 
expedient.  It  only  compels  us  to  maintain 
this,  if  “  expedient  ”  be  understood  in  the 
strictest  and  fullest  sense,  as  meaning  that, 
when  absolutely  all  the  consequences  are 
taken  into  account,  they  will  be  found  to  be 
the  best  possible.  And  if  this  be  clearly 
understood,  then  most  people,  I  think,  will 
be  reluctant  to  admit  that  it  can  ever  be 
really  inexpedient  to  do  our  duty,  or  that 
what  is  really  and  truly  expedient,  in  this  strict 
sense,  can  ever  be  wrong. 

But,  no  doubt,  some  people  may  still 
maintain  that  it  is  or  may  be  sometimes  our 
duty  to  do  actions  which  will  not  have  the 
best  possible  consequences,  and  sometimes 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  175 


also  positively  wrong,  to  do  actions  which 
will.  And  the  chief  reason  why  this  is  held 
is,  I  think,  the  following. 

It  is,  in  fact,  very  commonly  held  indeed 
that  there  are  certain  specific  kinds  of  action 
which  are  absolutely  always  right,  and  others 
which  are  absolutely  always  wrong.  Dif¬ 
ferent  people  will,  indeed,  take  different 
views  as  to  exactly  what  kinds  of  action 
have  this  character.  A  rule  which  will  be 
offered  by  one  set  of  persons  as  a  rule  to 
which  there  is  absolutely  no  exception  will 
be  rejected  by  others,  as  obviously  admitting 
of  exceptions  ;  but  these  will  generally,  in 
their  turn,  maintain  that  some  other  rule, 
which  they  can  mention,  really  has  no 
exceptions.  Thus  there  are  enormous 
numbers  of  people  who  would  agree  that 
some  rule  or  other  (and  generally  more  than 
one)  ought  absolutely  always  to  be  obeyed  ; 
although  probably  there  is  not  one  single 
rule  which  all  the  persons  who  maintain 
this  would  agree  upon.  Thus,  for  instance, 
some  people  might  maintain  that  murder 
(defined  in  some  particular  way)  is  an  act 
which  ought  absolutely  never  to  be  com- 


176 


ETHICS 


mitted  ;  or  that  to  act  justly  is  a  rule  which 
ought  absolutely  always  to  be  obeyed  ;  and 
similarly  it  might  be  suggested  with  regard 
to  many  other  kinds  of  action,  that  they 
are  actions,  which  it  is  either  always  our 
duty,  or  always  wrong  to  do 

But  once  we  assert  with  regard  to  any  rule 
of  this  kind  that  it  is  absolutely  always  our 
duty  to  obey  it,  it  is  easy  and  natural  to  take 
onefurther  step  and  to  say  that  it  would  always 
be  our  duty  to  obey  it,  whatever  the  conse¬ 
quences  might  be.  Of  course,  this  further  step 
does  not  necessarily  and  logically  follow  from 
the  mere  position  that  there  are  some  kinds  of 
action  which  ought,  in  fact ,  absolutely  always 
to  be  done  or  avoided.  For  it  is  just  possible 
that  there  are  some  kinds  which  do,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  absolutely  always  produce 
the  best  possible  consequences,  and  other 
kinds  which  absolutely  never  do  so.  And 
there  is  a  strong  tendency  among  persons 
who  hold  the  first  position  to  hold  that,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  this  is  the  case  :  that  right 
actions  always  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
produce  the  best  possible  results,  and  wrong 
actions  never.  Thus  even  those  who  would 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  177 


assent  to  the  maxim  that  “  Justice  should 
always  be  done,  though  the  heavens  should 
fall,”  will  generally  be  disposed  to  believe 
that  justice  never  will,  in  fact,  cause  the 
heavens  to  fall,  but  will  rather  be  always 
the  best  means  of  upholding  them.  And 
similarly  those  who  say  that  “  you  should 
never  do  evil  that  good  may  come,”  though 
their  maxim  seems  to  imply  that  good  may 
sometimes  come  from  doing  wrong,  would 
yet  be  very  loth  to  admit  that,  by  doing 
wrong,  you  ever  would  really  produce  better 
consequences  on  the  whole  than  if  you  had 
acted  rightly  instead.  Or  again,  those  who 
say  “  that  the  end  will  never  justify  the 
means,”  though  they  certainly  imply  that 
certain  ways  of  acting  would  be  always 
wrong,  whatever  advantages  might  be  secured 
by  them,  yet,  I  think,  would  be  inclined  to 
deny  that  the  advantages  to  be  obtained 
by  acting  wrongly  ever  do  really  outweigh 
those  to  be  obtained  by  acting  rightly,  if 
we  take  into  account  absolutely  all  the  con¬ 
sequences  of  each  course. 

Those,  therefore,  who  hold  that  certain 
specific  ways  of  acting  are  absolutely  always 


178 


ETHICS 


right,  and  others  absolutely  always  wrong,  do, 
I  think,  generally  hold  that  the  former  do  also, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  absolutely  always  pro¬ 
duce  the  best  results,  and  the  latter  never. 
But,  for  the  reasons  given  at  the  beginning  of 
Chapter  III,  it  is,  I  think,  very  unlikely  that 
this  belief  can  be  justified.  The  total  results 
of  an  action  always  depend,  not  merely  on 
the  specific  nature  of  the  action,  but  on  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  is  done  ;  and  the 
circumstances  vary  so  greatly  that  it  is,  in 
most  cases,  extremely  unlikely  that  any 
particular  kind  of  action  will  absolutely 
always,  in  absolutely  all  circumstances, 
either  produce  or  fail  to  produce  the  best 
possible  results.  For  this  reason,  if  we  do 
take  the  view  that  right  and  wrong  depend 
upon  consequences,  we  must,  I  think,  be 
prepared  to  doubt  whether  any  particular 
kind  of  action  whatever  is  absolutely  always 
right  or  absolutely  always  wrong.  For  in¬ 
stance,  however  we  define  “  murder,”  it  is 
unlikely  that  absolutely  no  case  will  ever 
occur  in  which  it  would  be  right  to  commit 
a  murder  ;  and,  however  we  define  “  justice,” 
it  is  unlikely  that  no  case  will  ever  occur 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  179 


in  which  it  would  be  right  to  do  an  injustice. 
No  doubt  it  may  be  possible  to  define  actions 
of  which  it  is  true  that,  in  an  immense 
majority  of  cases,  it  is  right  or  wrong  to 
perform  them  ;  and  perhaps  some  rules  of 
this  kind  might  be  found  to  which  there  are 
really  no  exceptions.  But  in  the  case  of 
most  of  the  ordinary  moral  rules,  it  seems 
extremely  unlikely  that  obedience  to  them 
will  absolutely  always  produce  the  best 
possible  results.  And  most  persons  who 
realise  this  would,  I  think,  be  disposed  to 
give  up  the  view  that  they  ought  absolutely 
always  to  be  obeyed.  They  would  be  content 
to  accept  them  as  general  rules,  to  which 
there  are  very  few  exceptions,  without  pre¬ 
tending  that  they  are  absolutely  universal. 
But,  no  doubt,  there  may  be  some  persons 
who  will  hold,  in  the  case  of  some  particular 
rule  or  set  of  rules,  that  even  if  obedience  to 
it  does  in  some  cases  not  produce  the  best 
possible  consequences,  yet  we  ought  even 
in  these  cases  to  obey  it.  It  may  seem  to 
them  that  they  really  do  know  certain  rules, 
which  ought  absolutely  always  to  be  obeyed, 
whatever  the  consequences  may  be,  and  even, 


180 


ETHICS 


therefore,  if  the  total  consequences  are  not 
the  best  possible.  They  may,  for  instance, 
take  quite  seriously  the  assertion  that  justice 
ought  to  be  done,  even  though  the  heavens 
should  fall,  as  meaning  that,  however  bad 
the  consequences  of  doing  an  act  of  justice 
might  in  some  circumstances  be,  yet  it 
always  would  be  our  duty  to  do  it.  And 
such  a  view  does  necessarily  contradict  our 
principle  ;  since,  whether  it  be  true  or  not 
that  an  act  of  injustice  ever  actually  could 
in  this  world  produce  the  best  possible  con¬ 
sequences,  it  is  certainly  possible  to  conceive 
circumstances  in  which  it  would  do  so.  I 
doubt  whether  those  who  believe  in  the 
absolute  universality  of  certain  moral  rules 
do  generally  thus  distinguish  quite  clearly 
between  the  question  whether  disobedience 
to  the  rule  ever  could  produce  the  best 
possible  consequences,  and  the  question 
whether,  if  it  did,  then  disobedience  would 
be  wrong.  They  would  generally  be  disposed 
to  argue  that  it  never  really  could.  But 
some  persons  might  perhaps  hold  that,  even 
if  it  did,  yet  disobedience  would  be  wrong. 
And  if  this  view  be  quite  clearly  held,  there 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  181 


is,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  absolutely  no  way  of 
refuting  it  except  by  appealing  to  the  self¬ 
evidence  of  the  principle  that  if  we  knew 
that  the  effect  of  a  given  action  really  would 
be  to  make  the  world,  as  a  whole,  worse  than 
it  would  have  been  if  we  had  acted  differently, 
it  certainly  would  be  wrong  for  us  to  do 
that  action.  Those  who  say  that  certain 
rules  ought  absolutely  always  to  be  obeyed, 
whatever  the  consequences  may  be,  are 
logically  bound  to  deny  this  ;  for  by  saying 
“  whatever  the  consequences  may  be,”  they 
do  imply  “  even  if  the  world  as  a  whole  were 
the  worse  because  of  our  action.”  It  seems 
to  me  to  be  self-evident  that  knowingly  to 
do  an  action  which  would  make  the  world, 
on  the  whole,  really  and  truly  worse  than  if 
we  had  acted  differently,  must  always  be 
wrong  And  if  this  be  admitted,  then  it 
absolutely  disposes  of  the  view  that  there 
are  any  kinds  of  action  whatever,  which  it 
would  always  be  our  duty  to  do  or  to  avoid, 
whatever  the  consequences  might  be. 

For  this  reason  it  seems  to  me  we  must 
reject  this  particular  objection  to  the  view 
that  right  and  wrong  always  depend  upon 


182 


ETHICS 


consequences;  namely,  the  objection  that 
there  are  certain  hinds  of  action  which  ought 
absolutely  always  and  quite  unconditionally 
to  be  done  or  avoided.  But  there  still  remain 
two  other  objections,  which  are  so  commonly 
held,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  consider  them. 

The  first  is  the  objection  that  right  and 
wrong  depend  neither  upon  the  nature  of  the 
action,  nor  upon  its  consequences,  but  partly, 
or  even  entirely,  upon  the  motive  or  motives 
from  which  it  is  done.  By  the  view  that  it 
depends  pavtly  upon  the  motives,  I  mean  the 
view  that  no  action  can  be  really  right, 
unless  it  be  done  from  some  one  motive,  or 
some  one  of  a  set  of  motives,  which  are 
supposed  to  be  good  ;  but  that  the  being 
done  from  such  a  motive  is  not  sufficient, 
by  itself,  to  make  an  action  right :  that  the 
action,  if  it  is  to  be  right,  must  always  also 
either  produce  the  best  possible  consequences, 
or  be  distinguished  by  some  other  character¬ 
istic.  And  this  view,  therefore,  will  not 
necessarily  contradict  our  principle  so  far 
as  it  asserts  that  no  action  can  be  right, 
unless  it  produces  the  best  possible  con¬ 
sequences  :  it  only  contradicts  that  part  of 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  183 


it  which  asserts  that  every  action  which  does 
produce  them  is  right.  But  the  view  has 
sometimes  been  held,  I  think,  that  right  and 
wrong  depend  entirely  upon  motives  :  that 
is  to  say,  that  not  only  is  no  action  right, 
unless  it  be  done  from  a  good  motive,  but  also 
that  any  action  which  is  done  from  some  one 
motive  or  some  one  of  a  set  of  motives  is  always 
right,  whatever  its  consequences  may  be  and 
whatever  it  may  be  like  in  other  respects 
And  this  view,  of  course,  will  contradict  both 
parts  of  our  principle ;  since  it  not  only 
implies  that  an  action,  which  produces  the 
best  possible  consequences  may  be  wrong, 
but  also  that  an  action  may  be  right,  in  spite 
of  failing  to  produce  them. 

In  favour  of  both  these  views  it  may  be 
urged  that  in  our  moral  judgments  we  actually 
do,  and  ought  to,  take  account  of  motives  ; 
and  indeed  that  it  marks  a  great  advance  in 
morality  when  men  do  begin  to  attach  im¬ 
portance  to  motives  and  are  not  guided 
exclusively  in  their  praise  or  blame,  by  the 
“  external  ”  nature  of  the  act  done  or  by  its 
consequences.  And  all  this  may  be  fully 
admitted.  It  is  quite  certain  that  when  a 


184 


ETHICS 


man  does  an  action  which  has  bad  conse¬ 
quences  from  a  good  motive,  we  do  tend  to 
judge  him  differently  from  a  man  who  does  a 
similar  action  from  a  bad  one  ;  and  also  that 
when  a  man  does  an  action  which  has  good 
consequences  from  a  bad  motive,  we  may 
nevertheless  think  badly  of  him  for  it.  And 
it  may  be  admitted  that,  in  some  cases  at  least, 
it  is  right  and  proper  that  a  man’s  motives 
should  thus  influence  our  judgment.  But 
the  question  is  :  What  sort  of  moral  judgment  is 
it  right  and  proper  that  they  should  influence  ? 
Should  it  influence  our  view  as  to  whether  the 
action  in  question  is  right  or  wrong  ?  It 
seems  very  doubtful  whether,  as  a  rule,  it 
actually  does  affect  our  judgment  on  this 
particular  point,  for  we  are  quite  accustomed 
to  judge  that  a  man  sometimes  acts  wrongly 
from  the  best  of  motives  ;  and  though  we 
should  admit  that  the  good  motive  forms 
some  excuse,  and  that  the  whole  state  of 
things  is  better  than  if  he  had  done  the  same 
thing  from  a  bad  motive,  it  yet  does  not  lead 
us  to  deny  that  the  action  is  wrong.  There 
is,  therefore,  reason  to  think  that  the  kind 
of  moral  judgments  which  a  consideration  of 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  185 


motives  actually  does  affect  do  not  consist  of 
judgments  as  to  whether  the  action  done  from 
the  motive  is  right  or  wrong  ;  but  are  moral 
judgments  of  some  different  kind  ;  and  there 
is  still  more  reason  to  think  that  it  is  only 
judgments  of  some  different  kind  which  ought 
to  be  influenced  by  it. 

The  fact  is  that  judgments  as  to  the  rightness 
and  wrongness  of  actions  are  by  no  means  the 
only  kind  of  moral  judgments  which  we  make ; 
and  it  is,  I  think,  solely  because  some  of  these 
other  judgments  are  confused  with  judgments 
of  right  and  wrong  that  the  latter  are  ever  held 
to  depend  upon  the  motive.  There  are  three 
other  kinds  of  judgments  which  are  chiefly 
concerned  in  this  case.  In  the  first  place  it 
may  be  held  that  some  motives  are  intrin¬ 
sically  good  and  others  intrinsically  had  ;  and 
though  this  is  a  view  which  is  inconsistent 
with  the  theory  of  our  first  two  chapters,  it  is 
not  a  view  which  we  are  at  present  concerned 
to  dispute  :  for  it  is  not  at  all  inconsistent 
with  the  principle  which  we  are  at  present 
considering — namely,  that  right  and  wrong 
always  depend  solely  upon  consequences.  If 
we  held  this  view,  we  might  still  hold  that  a 


186 


ETHICS 


man  may  act  wrongly  from  a  good  motive, 
and  rightly  from  a  bad  one,  and  that  the 
motive  would  make  no  difference  whatever  to 
the  rightness  or  wrongness  of  the  action.  What 
it  would  make  a  difference  to  is  the  goodness 
or  badness  of  the  whole  state  of  affairs  :  for, 
if  we  suppose  the  same  action  to  be  done  in 
one  case  from  a  good  motive  and  in  the  other 
from  a  bad  one,  then,  so  far  as  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  the  action  are  concerned,  the  good¬ 
ness  of  the  whole  state  of  things  will  be  the 
same,  while  the  presence  of  the  good  motive 
will  mean  the  presence  of  an  additional  good 
in  the  one  case  which  is  absent  in  the  other. 
For  this  reason  alone,  therefore,  we  might 
justify  the  view  that  motives  are  relevant  to 
some  kinds  of  moral  judgments,  though  not 
to  judgments  of  right  and  wrong. 

And  there  is  yet  another  reason  for  this  view, 
and  this  a  reason  which  may  be  consistently 
held  even  by  those  who  hold  the  theory  of  our 
first  two  chapters.  It  may  be  held,  namely, 
that  good  motives  have  a  general  tendency  to 
produce  right  conduct,  though  they  do  not 
always  do  so,  and  bad  motives  to  produce 
wrong  conduct ;  and  this  would  be  another 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  187 


reason  which  would  justify  us  in  regarding 
right  actions  done  from  a  good  motive 
differently  from  right  actions  done  from  a  bad 
one.  For  though,  in  the  case  supposed,  the 
bad  motive  would  not  actually  have  led  to 
wrong  action,  yet,  if  it  is  true  that  motives  of 
that  kind  do  generally  lead  to  wrong  action, 
we  should  be  right  in  passing  this  judgment 
upon  it ;  and  judgments  to  the  effect  that  a 
motive  is  of  a  kind  which  generally  leads  to 
wrong  action  are  undoubtedly  moral  judg¬ 
ments  of  a  sort,  and  an  important  sort,  though 
they  do  not  prove  that  every  action  done  from 
such  a  motive  is  wrong. 

And  finally  motives  seem  also  to  be  relevant 
to  a  third  kind  of  moral  judgment  of  great  im¬ 
portance — namely,  judgments  as  to  whether, 
and  in  what  degree,  the  agent  deserves  moral 
praise  or  blame  for  acting  as  he  did.  This  ques¬ 
tion  as  to  what  is  deserving  of  moral  praise  or 
blame  is,  I  think,  often  confused  with  the  ques¬ 
tion  as  to  what  is  right  or  wrong.  It  is  very 
natural,  at  first  sight,  to  assume  that  to  call  an 
action  morally  praiseworthy  is  the  same  thing 
as  to  say  that  it  is  right,  and  to  call  it  morally 
blameworthy  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  is 


188 


ETHICS 


wrong.  But  yet  a  very  little  reflection  suffices 
to  show  that  the  two  things  are  certainly  dis¬ 
tinct.  When  we  say  that  an  action  deserves 
praise  or  blame,  we  imply  that  it  is  right  to 
praise  or  blame  it ;  that  is  to  say,  we  are  mak¬ 
ing  a  judgment  not  about  the  rightness  of  the 
original  action,  but  about  the  rightness  of  the 
further  action  which  we  should  take,  if  we 
praised  or  blamed  it.  And  these  two  judgments 
are  certainly  not  identical ;  nor  is  there  any 
reason  to  think  that  what  is  right  always  also 
deserves  to  be  praised,  and  what  is  wrong  always 
also  deserves  to  be  blamed.  Even,  therefore,  if 
the  motive  is  relevant  to  the  question  whether 
an  action  deserves  praise  or  blame,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  it  is  also  relevant  to  the 
question  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong.  And 
there  is  some  reason  to  think  that  the  motive 
is  relevant  to  judgments  of  the  former  kind : 
that  we  really  ought  sometimes  to  praise  an 
action  done  from  a  bad  motive  less  than  if  it 
had  been  done  from  a  good  one,  and  to  blame 
an  action  done  from  a  good  motive  less  than 
if  it  had  been  done  from  a  bad  one.  For  one 
of  the  considerations  upon  which  the  question 
whether  it  is  right  to  blame  an  action  depends. 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  189 


is  that  our  blame  may  tend  to  prevent  the 
agent  from  doing  similar  wrong  actions  in 
future  ;  and  obviously,  if  the  agent  only  acted 
wrongly  from  a  motive  which  is  not  likely  to 
lead  him  wrong  in  the  future,  there  is  less  need 
to  try  to  deter  him  by  blame  than  if  he  had 
acted  from  a  motive  which  was  likely  to  lead 
him  to  act  wrongly  again.  This  is,  I  think,  a 
very  real  reason  why  we  sometimes  ought  to 
blame  a  man  less  when  he  does  wrong  from 
a  good  motive.  But  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
the  question  whether  a  man  deserves  moral 
praise  or  blame,  or  the  degree  to  which  he 
deserves  it,  depends  entirely  or  always  upon 
his  motive.  I  think  it  certainly  does  not. 
My  point  is  only  that  this  question  does  some - 
times  depend  on  the  motive  in  some  degree  ; 
whereas  the  question  whether  his  action  was 
right  or  wrong  never  depends  upon  it  at  all. 

There  are,  therefore,  at  least  three  different 
kinds  of  moral  judgments,  in  making  which 
it  is  at  least  plausible  to  hold  that  we  ought 
to  take  account  of  motives  ;  and  if  all  these 
judgments  are  carefully  distinguished  from 
that  particular  kind  which  is  solely  concerned 
with  the  question  whether  an  action  is  right 


i 


190 


ETHICS 


or  wrong,  there  ceases,  I  think,  to  be  any 
reason  to  suppose  that  this  last  question 
ever  depends  upon  the  motive  at  all.  At 
all  events  the  mere  fact  that  motives  are 
and  ought  to  be  taken  account  of  in  some 
moral  judgments  does  not  constitute  such 
a  reason.  And  hence  this  fact  cannot  be 
urged  as  an  objection  to  the  view  that  right 
and  wrong  depend  solely  on  consequences. 

But  there  remains  one  last  objection  to 
this  view,  which  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
the  most  serious  of  all.  This  is  an  objection 
which  will  be  urged  by  people  who  strongly 
maintain  that  right  and  wrong  do  not  depend 
either  upon  the  nature  of  the  action  or  upon 
its  motive,  and  who  will  even  go  so  far  as 
to  admit  as  self-evident  the  hypothetical 
proposition  that  if  any  being  absolutely 
knew  that  one  action  would  have  better 
total  consequences  than  another,  then  it 
would  always  be  his  duty  to  choose  the 
former  rather  than  the  latter.  But  what 
such  people  would  point  out  is  that  this 
hypothetical  case  is  hardly  ever,  if  ever, 
realised  among  us  men.  We  hardly  ever, 
if  ever,  know  for  certain  which  among  the 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  191 


courses  open  to  us  will  produce  the  best 
consequences.  Some  accident,  which  we 
could  not  possibly  have  foreseen,  may  always 
falsify  the  most  careful  calculations,  and 
make  an  action,  which  we  had  every  reason 
to  think  would  have  the  best  results,  actually 
have  worse  ones  than  some  alternative 
would  have  had.  Suppose,  then,  that  a  man 
has  taken  all  possible  care  to  assure  himself 
that  a  given  course  will  be  the  best,  and  has 
adopted  it  for  that  reason,  but  that  owing 
to  some  subsequent  event,  which  he  could 
not  possibly  have  foreseen,  it  turns  out  not 
to  be  the  best  :  are  we  for  that  reason  to 
„  say  that  his  action  was  wrong  ?  It  may 
seem  outrageous  to  say  so ;  and  yet  this 
is  what  we  must  say,  if  we  are  to  hold  that 
right  and  wrong  depend  upon  the  actual 
consequences.  Or  suppose  that  a  man  has 
deliberately  chosen  a  course,  which  he  has 
every  reason  to  suppose  will  not  produce  the 
best  consequences,  but  that  some  unforeseen 
accident  defeats  his  purpose  and  makes  it 
actually  turn  out  to  be  the  best :  are  we  to 
say  that  such  a  man,  because  of  this  unfore¬ 
seen  accident,  has  acted  rightly  ?  This  also 


192 


ETHICS 


may  seem  an  outrageous  thing  to  say  ;  and 
yet  we  must  say  it,  if  we  are  to  hold  that 
right  and  wrong  depend  upon  the  actual 
consequences.  For  these  reasons  many  people 
are  strongly  inclined  to  hold  that  they  do 
not  depend  upon  the  actual  consequences, 
but  only  upon  those  which  were  antecedently 
probable ,  or  which  the  agent  had  reason  to 
expect,  or  which  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
foresee.  They  are  inclined  to  say  that  an 
action  is  always  right,  whatever  its  actual 
consequences  may  be,  provided  the  agent 
had  reason  to  expect  that  they  would  be 
the  best  possible  ;  and  always  wrong,  if  he 
had  reason  to  expect  that  they  would  not. 

This,  I  think,  is  the  most  serious  objection 
to  the  view  that  right  and  wrong  depend 
upon  the  actual  consequences.  But  yet  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  even  this  objection 
can  be  got  over  by  reference  to  the  distinction 
between  what  is  right  or  wrong,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  what  is  morally  praiseworthy  or 
blameworthy  on  the  other.  What  we  should 
naturally  say  of  a  man  whose  action  turns 
out  badly  owing  to  some  unforeseen  accident 
when  he  had  every  reason  to  expect  that  it 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  193 


would  turn  out  well,  is  not  that  his  action 
was  right,  but  rather  that  he  is  not  to  blame. 
And  it  may  be  fully  admitted  that  in  such 
a  case  he  really  ought  not  to  be  blamed  ; 
since  blame  cannot  possibly  serve  any  good 
purpose,  and  would  be  likely  to  do  harm. 
But,  even  if  we  admit  that  he  was  not  to 
blame,  is  that  any  reason  for  asserting  also 
that  he  acted  rightly?  I  cannot  see  that 
it  is  ;  and  therefore  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  in  all  such  cases  the  man  really  did  act 
wrongly ,  although  he  is  not  to  blame,  and 
although,  perhaps,  he  even  deserves  praise 
for  acting  as  he  did. 

But  the  same  difficulty  may  be  put  in 
another  form,  in  which  there  may  seem  an 
even  stronger  case  against  the  view  that 
right  and  wrong  depend  on  the  actual  con¬ 
sequences.  Instead  of  considering  what 
judgment  we  ought  to  pass  on  an  action 
after  it  has  been  done,  and  when  many  of 
its  results  are  already  known,  let  us  consider 
what  judgment  we  ought  to  pass  on  it  before¬ 
hand,  and  when  the  question  is  which  among 
several  courses  still  open  to  a  man  he  ought 
to  choose.  It  is  admitted  that  he  cannot 

G 


194 


ETHICS 


know  for  certain  beforehand  which  of  them 

will  actually  have  the  best  results  ;  but  let 

us  suppose  that  he  has  every  reason  to  think 

that  one  of  them  will  produce  decidedly 

better  results  than  anv  of  the  others — that 

«/ 

all  probability  is  in  favour  of  this  view. 
Can  we  not  say,  in  such  a  case,  that  he 
absolutely  ought  to  choose  that  one  ?  that 
he  will  be  acting  very  wrongly  if  he  chooses 
any  other  ?  We  certainly  should  actually 
say  so  ;  and  many  people  may  be  inclined 
to  think  that  we  should  be  right  in  saying 
so,  no  matter  what  the  results  may  sub¬ 
sequently  prove  to  be.  There  does  seem  to 
be  a  certain  paradox  in  maintaining  the 
opposite :  in  maintaining  that,  in  such  a 
case,  it  can  possibly  be  true  that  he  ought 
to  choose  a  course,  which  he  has  every  reason 
to  think  will  not  be  the  best.  But  yet  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  even  this  difficulty 
is  not  fatal  to  our  view.  It  may  be  admitted 
that  we  should  say,  and  should  be  justified 
in  saying,  that  he  absolutely  ought  to  choose 
the  course,  which  he  has  reason  to  think 
will  be  the  best.  But  we  may  be  justified 
in  saying  many  things,  which  we  do  not 


TEST  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  195 


know  to  be  true,  and  which  in  fact  are  not 
so,  provided  there  is  a  strong  probability 
that  they  are.  And  so  in  this  case  I  do  not 
see  why  we  should  not  hold,  that  though  we 
should  be  justified  in  saying  that  he  ought 
to  choose  one  course,  yet  it  may  not  be 
really  true  that  he  ought.  What  certainly 
will  be  true  is  that  he  will  deserve  the  strongest 
moral  blame  if  he  does  not  choose  the  course 
in  question,  even  though  it  may  be  wrong. 
And  we  are  thus  committed  to  the  paradox 
that  a  man  may  really  deserve  the  strongest 
moral  condemnation  for  choosing  an  action, 
which  actually  is  right.  But  I  do  not  see 
why  we  should  not  accept  this  paradox. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  there  is  no  con¬ 
clusive  reason  against  the  view  that  our 
theory  is  right,  so  far  as  it  maintains  that 
the  question  whether  an  action  is  right  or 
wrong  always  depends  on  its  actual  conse¬ 
quences.  There  seems  no  sufficient  reason 
for  holding  either  that  it  depends  on  the 
intrinsic  nature  of  the  action,  or  that  it 
depends  upon  the  motive,  or  even  that  it 
depends  on  the  probable  consequences. 


CHAPTER  VI 


FREE  WILL 

Throughout  the  last  three  chapters  we 
have  been  considering  various  objections 
which  might  be  urged  against  the  theory 
stated  in  Chapters  I  and  II.  And  the  very 
last  objection  which  we  considered  was  one 
which  consisted  in  asserting  that  the  question 
whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong  does  not 
depend  upon  its  actual  consequences,  because 
whenever  the  consequences,  so  far  as  the  agent 
can  foresee ,  are  likely  to  be  the  best  possible, 
the  action  is  always  right,  even  if  they  are  not 
actually  the  best  possible.  In  other  words,  this 
objection  rested  on  the  view  that  right  and 
wrong  depend,  in  a  sense,  upon  what  the  agent 
can  know.  And  in  the  present  chapter  I  pro¬ 
pose  to  consider  objections,  which  rest,  instead 
of  this,  upon  the  view  that  right  and  wrong 
depend  upon  what  the  agent  can  do. 

196 


FREE  WILL 


197 


Now  it  must  be  remembered  that,  in  a 
sense ,  our  original  theory  does  hold  and  even 
insists  that  this  is  the  case.  We  have,  for 
instance,  frequently  referred  to  it  in  the 
last  chapter  as  holding  that  an  action  is 
only  right,  if  it  produces  the  best  possible 
consequences  ;  and  by  “  the  best  possible 
consequences  ”  was  meant  “  consequences  at 
least  as  good  as  would  have  followed  from 
any  action  which  the  agent  could  have  done 
instead.”  It  does,  therefore,  hold  that  the 
question  whether  an  action  is  right  or  wrong 
does  always  depend  upon  a  comparison  of 
its  consequences  with  those  of  all  the  other 
actions  which  the  agent  could  have  done 
instead.  It  assumes,  therefore,  that  wherever 
a  voluntary  action  is  right  or  wrong  (and 
we  have  throughout  only  been  talking  of 
voluntary  actions),  it  is  true  that  the  agent 
could ,  in  a  sense,  have  done  something  else 
instead.  This  is  an  absolutely  essential  part 
of  the  theory. 

Rut  the  reader  must  now  be  reminded  that 
all  along  we  have  been  using  the  words  44  can,” 
44  could,”  and  44  possible  ”  in  a  special  sense. 
It  was  explained  in  Chapter  I  (pp.  29-31),  that 


198 


ETHICS 


we  proposed,  purely  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  to 
say  that  an  agent  could  have  done  a  given 
action,  which  he  didn’t  do,  wherever  it  is  true 
that  he  could  have  done  it,  if  he  had  chosen ; 
and  similarly  by  what  he  can  do,  or  what 
is  possible ,  we  have  always  meant  merely 
what  is  possible,  if  he  chooses.  Our  theory, 
therefore,  has  not  been  maintaining,  after 
all,  that  right  and  wrong  depend  upon  what 
the  agent  absolutely  can  do,  but  only  on 
what  he  can  do,  if  he  chooses.  And  this 
makes  an  immense  difference.  For,  by  con¬ 
fining  itself  in  this  way,  our  theory  avoids 
a  controversy,  which  cannot  be  avoided  by 
those  who  assert  that  right  and  wrong 
depend  upon  what  the  agent  absolutely  can 
do.  There  are  few,  if  any,  people  who  will 
expressly  deny  that  we  very  often  really 
could,  if  we  had  chosen,  have  done  some¬ 
thing  different  from  what  we  actually  did 
do.  But  the  moment  it  is  asserted  that 
any  man  ever  absolutely  could  have  done 
anything  other  than  what  he  did  do,  there 
are  many  people  who  would  deny  this. 
The  view,  therefore,  which  we  are  to  consider 
in  this  chapter — the  view  that  right  and 


FREE  WILL 


199 


wrong  depend  upon  what  the  agent  absolutely 
can  do — at  once  involves  us  in  an  extremely 
difficult  controversy — the  controversy  con¬ 
cerning  Free  Will.  There  are  many  people 
who  strenuously  deny  that  any  man  ever 
could  have  done  anything  other  than  what 
he  actually  did  do,  or  ever  can  do  anything 
other  than  what  he  will  do  ;  and  there  are 
others  who  assert  the  opposite  equally 
strenuously  And  whichever  view  be  held 
is,  if  combined  with  the  view  that  right  and 
wrong  depend  upon  what  the  agent  absolutely 
can  do,  liable  to  contradict  our  theory  very 
seriously.  Those  who  hold  that  no  man 
ever  could  have  done  anything  other  than 
what  he  did  do,  are,  if  they  also  hold  that 
right  and  wrong  depend  upon  what  we  can 
do,  logically  bound  to  hold  that  no  action 
of  ours  is  ever  right  and  none  is  ever  wrong  ; 
and  this  is  a  view  which  is,  I  think,  often 
actually  held,  and  which,  of  course,  con¬ 
stitutes  an  extremely  serious  and  funda¬ 
mental  objection  to  our  theory  :  since  our 
theory  implies,  on  the  contrary,  that  we 
very  often  do  act  wrongly ,  if  never  quite 
rightly.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who 


200 


ETHICS 


hold  that  we  absolutely  can  do  things,  which 
we  don’t  do,  and  that  right  and  wrong 
depend  upon  what  we  thus  can  do,  are  also 
liable  to  be  led  to  contradict  our  theory, 
though  for  a  different  reason.  Our  theory 
holds  that,  provided  a  man  could  have  done 
something  else,  if  he  had  chosen,  that  is 
sufficient  to  entitle  us  to  say  that  his  action 
really  is  either  right  or  wrong.  But  those 
who  hold  the  view  we  are  considering  will 
be  liable  to  reply  that  this  is  by  no  means 
sufficient :  that  to  say  that  it  is  sufficient, 
is  entirely  to  misconceive  the  nature  of 
right  and  wrong.  They  will  say  that,  in 
order  that  an  action  may  be  really  either 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  absolutely  essential 
that  the  agent  should  have  been  really  able 
to  act  differently,  able  in  some  sense  quite 
other  than  that  of  merely  being  able,  if  he 
had  chosen.  If  all  that  were  really  ever 
true  of  us  were  merely  that  we  could  have 
acted  differently,  if  we  had  chosen,  then, 
these  people  would  say,  it  really  would  be 
true  that  none  of  our  actions  are  ever  right 
and  that  none  are  ever  wrong.  They  will 
say,  therefore,  that  our  theory  entirely 


FREE  WILL 


201 


misses  out  one  absolutely  essential  condition 
of  right  and  wrong — the  condition  that,  for 
an  action  to  be  right  or  wrong,  it  must  be 
freely  done.  And  moreover,  many  of  them 
will  hold  also  that  the  class  of  actions  which 
we  absolutely  can  do  is  often  not  identical 
with  those  which  we  can  do,  if  we  choose. 
They  may  say,  for  instance,  that  very  often 
an  action,  which  we  could  have  done,  if  we 
had  chosen,  is  nevertheless  an  action  which 
we  could  not  have  done  ;  and  that  an  action 
is  always  right,  if  it  produces  as  good  con¬ 
sequences  as  any  other  action  which  we 
really  could  have  done  instead.  From  which 
it  will  follow  that  many  actions  which  our 
theory  declares  to  be  wrong ,  will,  according 
to  them,  be  right,  because  these  actions 
really  are  the  best  of  all  that  we  could  have 
done,  though  not  the  best  of  all  that  we 
could  have  done,  if  we  had  chosen. 

Now  these  objections  seem  to  me  to  be 
the  most  serious  which  we  have  yet  had  to 
consider.  They  seem  to  me  to  be  serious 
because  (1)  it  is  very  difficult  to  be  sure 
that  right  and  wrong  do  not  really  depend, 
as  they  assert,  upon  what  we  can  do  and 


202 


ETHICS 


not  merely  on  what  we  can  do,  if  we  choose  ; 
and  because  (2)  it  is  very  difficult  to  be  sure 
in  what  sense  it  is  true  that  we  ever  could 
have  done  anything  different  from  what  we 
actually  did  do.  I  do  not  profess  to  be 
sure  about  either  of  these  points.  And  all 
that  I  can  hope  to  do  is  to  point  out  certain 
facts  which  do  seem  to  me  to  be  clear, 
though  they  are  often  overlooked ;  and 
thus  to  isolate  clearly  for  the  reader’s  de¬ 
cision,  those  questions  which  seem  to  me  to 
be  really  doubtful  and  difficult. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  question  :  Is  it  ever 
true  that  a  man  could  have  done  anything  else, 
except  what  he  actually  did  do  ?  And,  first 
of  all,  I  think  I  had  better  explain  exactly 
how  this  question  seems  to  me  to  be  related  to 
the  question  of  Free  Will.  For  it  is  a  fact 
that,  in  many  discussions  about  Free  Will, 
this  precise  question  is  never  mentioned  at 
all ;  so  that  it  might  be  thought  that  the  two 
have  really  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  one 
another.  And  indeed  some  philosophers  do, 
I  think,  definitely  imply  that  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  one  another  :  they  seem  to  hold 
that  our  wills  can  properly  be  said  to  be  free 


FREE  WILL 


203 


even  if  we  never  can,  in  any  sense  at  all,  do 
anything  else  except  what,  in  the  end,  we 
actually  do  do.  But  this  view,  if  it  is  held, 
seems  to  me  to  be  plainly  a  mere  abuse  of 
language.  The  statement  that  we  have  Free 
Will  is  certainly  ordinarily  understood  to 
imply  that  we  really  sometimes  have  the  power 
of  acting  differently  from  the  way  in  which 
we  actually  do  act ;  and  hence,  if  anybody 
tells  us  that  we  have  Free  Will,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  means  to  deny  that  we  ever  have 
such  a  power,  he  is  simply  misleading  us.  We 
certainly  have  not  got  Free  Will,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  if  we  never  really 
could ,  in  any  sense  at  all,  have  done  anything 
else  than  what  we  did  do  ;  so  that,  in  this 
respect,  the  two  questions  certainly  are  con¬ 
nected.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mere  fact 
(if  it  is  a  fact)  that  we  sometimes  can,  in  some 
sense,  do  what  we  don’t  do,  does  not  neces¬ 
sarily  entitle  us  to  say  that  we  have  Free  Will. 
We  certainly  haven't  got  it,  unless  we  can  ; 
but  it  doesn’t  follow  that  we  have  got  it,  even 
if  we  can.  Whether  we  have  or  not  will  depend 
upon  the  precise  sense  in  which  it  is  true  that 
we  can.  So  that  even  if  we  do  decide  that 


204 


ETHICS 


we  really  can  often,  in  some  sense,  do  what  we 
don’t  do,  this  decision  by  itself  does  not  entitle 
us  to  say  that  we  have  Free  Will. 

And  the  first  point  about  which  we  can  and 
should  be  quite  clear  is,  I  think,  this :  namely, 
that  we  certainly  often  can,  in  some  sense,  do 
what  we  don’t  do.  It  is,  I  think,  quite  clear 
that  this  is  so  ;  and  also  very  important  that 
we  should  realise  that  it  is  so.  For  many 
people  are  inclined  to  assert,  quite  without 
qualification  :  No  man  ever  could,  on  any 
occasion,  have  done  anything  else  than  what 
he  actually  did  do  on  that  occasion.  By 
asserting  this  quite  simply,  without  qualifica¬ 
tion,  they  imply,  of  course  (even  if  they  do 
not  mean  to  imply),  that  there  is  no  proper 
sense  of  the  word  44  could,”  in  which  it  is  true 
that  a  man  could  have  acted  differently.  And 
it  is  this  implication  which  is,  I  think,  quite 
certainly  absolutely  false.  For  this  reason, 
anybody  who  asserts,  without  qualification, 
44  Nothing  ever  could  have  happened,  except 
what  actually  did  happen,”  is  making  an 
assertion  which  is  quite  unjustifiable,  and 
which  he  himself  cannot  help  constantly 
contradicting.  And  it  is  important  to  insist 


FREE  WILL 


205 


on  this,  because  many  people  do  make  this 
unqualified  assertion,  without  seeing  how 
violently  it  contradicts  what  they  themselves, 
and  all  of  us,  believe,  and  rightly  believe,  at 
other  times.  If,  indeed,  they  insert  a  quali¬ 
fication — if  they  merely  say,  44  In  one  sense  of 
the  word  4  could  ’  nothing  ever  could  have 
happened,  except  what  did  happen,  then, 
they  may  perhaps  be  perfectly  right :  we  are 
not  disputing  that  they  may.  All  that  we  are 
maintaining  is  that,  in  one  perfectly  proper 
and  legitimate  sense  of  the  word  44  could,”  and 
that  one  of  the  very  commonest  senses  in  which 
it  is  used,  it  is  quite  certain  that  some  things 
which  didn’t  happen  could  have  happened 
And  the  proof  that  this  is  so,  is  simply  as 
follows. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  frequency 
of  the  occasions  on  which  we  all  of  us  make 
a  distinction  between  two  things,  neither  of 
which  did  happen, — a  distinction  which  we 
express  by  saying,  that  whereas  the  one  could 
have  happened,  the  other  could  not.  No  dis¬ 
tinction  is  commoner  than  this.  And  no  one, 
I  think,  who  fairly  examines  the  instances  in 
which  we  make  it,  can  doubt  about  three 


206 


ETHICS 


things  :  namely  (1)  that  very  often  there 
really  is  some  distinction  between  the  two 
things,  corresponding  to  the  language  which 
we  use  ;  (2)  that  this  distinction,  which  really 
does  subsist  between  the  things,  is  the  one 
which  we  mean  to  express  by  saying  that  the 
one  was  possible  and  the  other  impossible ; 
and  (3)  that  this  way  of  expressing  it  is  a 
perfectly  proper  and  legitimate  way.  But  if 
so,  it  absolutely  follows  that  one  of  the  com¬ 
monest  and  most  legitimate  usages  of  the 
phrases  “  could  ”  and  “  could  not  ”  is  to 
express  a  difference,  which  often  really  does 
hold  between  two  things  neither  of  which  did 
actually  happen.  Only  a  few  instances  need 
be  given.  I  could  have  walked  a  mile  in 
twenty  minutes  this  morning,  but  I  certainly 
could  not  have  run  two  miles  in  five  minutes. 
I  did  not,  in  fact ,  do  either  of  these  two 
things  ;  but  it  is  pure  nonsense  to  say  that 
the  mere  fact  that  I  did  not,  does  away  with 
the  distinction  between  them,  which  I  express 
by  saying  that  the  one  was  within  my  powers, 
whereas  the  other  was  not.  Although  I  did 
neither,  yet  the  one  was  certainly  possible  to 
me  in  a  sense  in  which  the  other  was  totally 


FREE  WILL 


207 


impossible.  Or,  to  take  another  instance  : 
It  is  true,  as  a  rule,  that  cats  can  climb  trees, 
whereas  dogs  can't.  Suppose  that  on  a  parti¬ 
cular  afternoon  neither  A’s  cat  nor  B’s  dog  do 
climb  a  tree.  It  is  quite  absurd  to  say  that 
this  mere  fact  proves  that  we  must  be  wrong 
if  we  say  (as  we  certainly  often  should  say) 
that  the  cat  could  have  climbed  a  tree,  though 
she  didn’t,  whereas  the  dog  couldn't.  Or,  to 
take  an  instance  which  concerns  an  inanimate 
object.  Some  ships  can  steam  20  knots, 
whereas  others  can't  steam  more  than  15. 
And  the  mere  fact  that,  on  a  particular  occa¬ 
sion,  a  20-knot  steamer  did  not  actually  run 
at  this  speed  certainly  does  not  entitle  us  to 
say  that  she  could  not  have  done  so,  in  the 
sense  in  which  a  15-knot  one  could  not.  On 
the  contrary,  we  all  can  and  should  distin¬ 
guish  between  cases  in  which  (as,  for  instance, 
owing  to  an  accident  to  her  propeller)  she  did 
not,  because  she  could  not,  and  cases  in  which 
she  did  not,  although  she  could.  Instances 
of  this  sort  might  be  multiplied  quite  inde¬ 
finitely  ;  and  it  is  surely  quite  plain  that  we 
all  of  us  do  continually  use  such  language  : 
we  continually,  when  considering  two  events, 


208 


ETHICS 


neither  of  which  did  happen,  distinguish  be¬ 
tween  them  by  saying  that  whereas  the  one 
was  possible,  though  it  didn’t  happen,  the 
other  was  impossible.  And  it  is  surely  quite 
plain  that  what  we  mean  by  this  (whatever 
it  may  be)  is  something  which  is  often  per¬ 
fectly  true.  But,  if  so,  then  anybody  who 
asserts,  without  qualification,  44  Nothing 
ever  could  have  happened,  except  what  did 
happen,”  is  simply  asserting  what  is  false. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  certain  that  we  often 
could  (in  some  sense)  have  done  what  we 
did  not  do.  And  now  let  us  see  how  this  fact 
is  related  to  the  argument  by  which  people 
try  to  persuade  us  that  it  is  not  a  fact. 

The  argument  is  well  known :  it  is  simply 
this.  It  is  assumed  (for  reasons  which  I  need 
not  discuss)  that  absolutely  everything  that 
happens  has  a  cause  in  what  precedes  it. 
But  to  say  this  is  to  say  that  it  follows 
necessarily  from  something  that  preceded  it  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  that,  once  the  preceding 
events  which  are  its  cause  had  happened, 
it  was  absolutely  bound  to  happen.  But  to 
say  that  it  was  bound  to  happen,  is  to  say 
that  nothing  else  could  have  happened 


FREE  WILL 


209 


instead  ;  so  that,  if  everything  has  a  cause, 
nothing  ever  could  have  happened  except 
what  did  happen. 

And  now  let  us  assume  that  the  premise 
of  this  argument  is  correct  :  that  every¬ 
thing  really  has  a  cause.  What  really 
follows  from  it  ?  Obviously  all  that  follows 
is  that,  in  one  sense  of  the  word  “  could,” 
nothing  ever  could  have  happened,  except 
what  did  happen.  This  really  does  follow. 
But,  if  the  word  “  could  ”  is  ambigu¬ 
ous  —  if,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  used  in 
different  senses  on  different  occasions — it 
is  obviously  quite  possible  that  though,  in 
one  sense,  nothing  ever  could  have  happened 
except  what  did  happen,  yet  in  another 
sense,  it  may  at  the  same  time  be  perfectly 
true  that  some  things  which  did  not  happen 
could  have  happened.  And  can  anybody 
undertake  to  assert  with  certainty  that  the 
word  “  could  ”  is  not  ambiguous  ?  that  it 
may  not  have  more  than  one  legitimate 
sense  ?  Possibly  it  is  not  ambiguous  ;  and, 
if  it  is  not,  then  the  fact  that  some  things, 
which  did  not  happen,  could  have  happened, 
really  would  contradict  the  principle  that 


210 


ETHICS 


everything  has  a  cause  ;  and,  in  that  case, 
we  should,  I  think,  have  to  give  up  this 
principle,  because  the  fact  that  we  often 
could  have  done  what  we  did  not  do,  is  so 
certain.  But  the  assumption  that  the  word 
44  could  ”  is  not  ambiguous  is  an  assumption 
which  certainly  should  not  be  made  without 
the  clearest  proof.  And  yet  I  think  it  often 
is  made,  without  any  proof  at  all  ;  simply 
because  it  does  not  occur  to  people  that 
words  often  are  ambiguous.  It  is,  for 
instance,  often  assumed,  in  the  Free  Will 
controversy,  that  the  question  at  issue  is 
solely  as  to  whether  everything  is  caused, 
or  whether  acts  of  will  are  sometimes  un¬ 
caused.  Those  who  hold  that  we  have  Free 
Will,  think  themselves  bound  to  maintain 
that  acts  of  will  sometimes  have  no  cause  ; 
and  those  who  hold  that  everything  is 
caused  think  that  this  proves  completely 
that  we  have  not  Free  Will.  But,  in  fact, 
it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  Free  Will 
is  at  all  inconsistent  with  the  principle  that 
everything  is  caused.  Whether  it  is  or  not, 
all  depends  on  a  very  difficult  question  as 
to  the  meaning  of  the  word  44  could.”  All 


FREE  WILL 


211 


that  is  certain  about  the  matter  is  (1)  that,- 
if  we  have  Free  Will,  it  must  be  true,  in  / 
some  sense,  that  we  sometimes  could  have 
done,  what  we  did  not  do  ;  and  (2)  that,  if 
everything  is  caused,  it  must  be  true,  in 
some  sense,  that  we  never  could  have  done, 
what  we  did  not  do.  What  is  very  uncertain, 
and  what  certainly  needs  to  be  investigated, 
is  whether  these  two  meanings  of  the  word 
“  could  ”  are  the  same. 

Let  us  begin  by  asking :  What  is  the 
sense  of  the  word  “  could,”  in  which  it  is  so 
certain  that  we  often  could  have  done,  what 
we  did  not  do  ?  What,  for  instance,  is  the 
sense  in  which  I  could  have  walked  a  mile 
in  twenty  minutes  this  morning,  though  I 
did  not  ?  There  is  one  suggestion,  which 
is  very  obvious  :  namely,  that  what  I  mean 
is  simply  after  all  that  I  could,  if  I  had 
chosen  ;  or  (to  avoid  a  possible  complication) 
perhaps  we  had  better  say  “  that  I  should, 
if  I  had  chosen.”  In  other  words,  the 
suggestion  is  that  we  often  use  the  phrase 
“  1  could  ”  simply  and  solely  as  a  short  way 
of  saying  44 1  should ,  if  I  had  chosen.”  And 
in  all  cases,  where  it  is  certainly  true  that 


) 


212 


ETHICS 


we  could  have  done,  what  we  did  not  do,  it 
is,  I  think,  very  difficult  to  be  quite  sure 
that  this  (or  something  similar)  is  not  what 
we  mean  by  the  word  44  could.  ”  The  case 
of  the  ship  may  seem  to  be  an  exception, 
because  it  is  certainly  not  true  that  she 
would  have  steamed  twenty  knots  if  she 
had  chosen  ;  but  even  here  it  seems  possible 
that  what  we  mean  is  simply  that  she 
would ,  if  the  men  on  board  of  her  had  chosen. 
There  are  certainly  good  reasons  for  thinking 
that  we  very  often  mean  by  44  could  ”  merely 
44  would,  if  so  and  so  had  chosen.”  And  if 
so,  then  we  have  a  sense  of  the  word  44  could  ” 
in  which  the  fact  that  we  often  could  have 
done  what  we  did  not  do,  is  perfectly  com¬ 
patible  with  the  principle  that  everything 
has  a  cause  :  for  to  say  that,  if  I  had  per¬ 
formed  a  certain  act  of  will,  I  should  have 
done  something  which  I  did  not  do,  in  no 
way  contradicts  this  principle. 

And  an  additional  reason  for  supposing  that 
this  is  what  we  often  mean  by  44  could,”  and 
one  which  is  also  a  reason  why  it  is  important 
to  insist  on  the  obvious  fact  that  we  very 
often  really  should  have  acted  differently,  if 


FREE  WILL 


213 


we  had  willed  differently,  is  that  those  who 
deny  that  we  ever  could  have  done  anything, 
which  we  did  not  do,  often  speak  and  think 
as  if  this  really  did  involve  the  conclusion 
that  we  never  should  have  acted  differently, 
even  if  we  had  willed  differently.  This 
occurs,  I  think,  in  two  chief  instances — one 
in  reference  to  the  future,  the  other  in 
reference  to  the  past.  The  first  occurs  when, 
because  they  hold  that  nothing  can  happen, 
except  what  will  happen,  people  are  led  to 
adopt  the  view  called  Fatalism — the  view 
that  whatever  we  will ,  the  result  will  always 
be  the  same ;  that  it  is,  therefore,  never  any 
use  to  make  one  choice  rather  than  another. 
And  this  conclusion  will  really  follow  if  by 
“  can  ”  we  mean  “  would  happen,  even  if 
we  were  to  will  it.”  But  it  is  certainly 
untrue,  and  it  certainly  does  not  follow 
from  the  principle  of  causality.  On  the 
contrary,  reasons  of  exactly  the  same  sort 
and  exactly  as  strong  as  those  which  lead 
us  to  suppose  that  everything  has  a  cause, 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  if  we  choose  one 
course,  the  result  will  always  be  different  in 
some  respect  from  what  it  would  have  been, 


214 


ETHICS 


if  we  had  chosen  another  ;  and  we  know 
also  that  the  difference  would  sometimes 
consist  in  the  fact  that  what  we  chose  would 
come  to  pass.  It  is  certainly  often  true  of 
the  future,  therefore,  that  whichever  of  two 
actions  we  were  to  choose,  would  actually 
be  done,  although  it  is  quite  certain  that 
only  one  of  the  two  will  be  done. 

And  the  second  instance,  in  which  people  are 
apt  to  speak  and  think,  as  if,  because  no  man 
ever  could  have  done  anything  but  what  he 
did  do,  it  follows  that  he  would  not,  even 
if  he  had  chosen,  is  as  follows.  Many  people 
seem,  in  fact,  to  conclude  directly  from  the 
first  of  these  two  propositions,  that  we  can 
never  be  justified  in  praising  or  blaming  a 
man  for  anything  that  he  does,  or  indeed 
for  making  any  distinction  between  what  is 
right  or  wrong,  on  the  one  hand,  and  what 
is  lucky  or  unfortunate  on  the  other.  They 
conclude,  for  instance,  that  there  is  never 
any  reason  to  treat  or  to  regard  the  voluntary 
commission  of  a  crime  in  any  different  way 
from  that  in  which  we  treat  or  regard  the 
involuntary  catching  of  a  disease.  The  man 
who  committed  the  crime  could  not,  they 


FREE  WILL 


215 


say,  have  helped  committing  it  any  more 
than  the  other  man  could  have  helped 
catching  the  disease ;  both  events  were 
equally  inevitable  ;  and  though  both  may 
of  course  be  great  misfortunes ,  though  both 
may  have  very  bad  consequences  and  equally 
bad  ones — there  is  no  justification  whatever, 
they  say,  for  the  distinction  we  make  between 
them  when  we  say  that  the  commission  of 
the  crime  was  wrong ,  or  that  the  man  was 
morally  to  blame  for  it,  whereas  the  catching 
of  the  disease  was  not  wrong  and  the  man 
was  not  to  blame  for  it.  And  this  conclusion, 
again,  will  really  follow  if  by  “  could  not,” 
we  mean  “  would  not,  even  if  he  had  willed 
to  avoid  it.”  But  the  point  I  want  to  make 
is,  that  it  follows  only  if  we  make  this 
assumption.  That  is  to  say,  the  mere  fact 
that  the  man  would  have  succeeded  in 
avoiding  the  crime,  if  he  had  chosen  (which 
is  certainly  often  true),  whereas  the  other 
man  would  not  have  succeeded  in  avoiding 
the  disease,  even  if  he  had  chosen  (which  is 
certainly  also  often  true)  gives  an  ample 
justification  for  regarding  and  treating  the 
two  cases  differently.  It  gives  such  a 


216 


ETHICS 


justification,  because,  where  the  occurrence 
of  an  event  did  depend  upon  the  will,  there, 
by  acting  on  the  will  (as  we  may  do  by 
blame  or  punishment)  we  have  often  a 
reasonable  chance  of  preventing  similar 
events  from  recurring  in  the  future  ;  whereas, 
where  it  did  not  depend  upon  the  will,  we 
have  no  such  chance.  We  may,  therefore, 
fairly  say  that  those  who  speak  and  think, 
as  if  a  man  who  brings  about  a  misfortune 
voluntarily  ought  to  be  treated  and  regarded 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  one  who  brings 
about  an  equally  great  misfortune  in¬ 
voluntarily,  are  speaking  and  thinking  as  if 
it  were  not  true  that  we  ever  should  have 
acted  differently,  even  if  we  had  willed  to 
do  so.  And  that  is  why  it  is  extremely 
important  to  insist  on  the  absolute  certainty 
of  the  fact  that  we  often  really  should  have 
acted  differently,  if  we  had  willed  differently. 

There  is,  therefore,  much  reason  to  think 
that  when  we  say  that  we  could  have  done 
a  thing  which  we  did  not  do,  we  often  mean 
merely  that  we  should  have  done  it,  if  we 
had  chosen.  And  if  so,  then  it  is  quite 
certain  that,  in  this  sense,  we  often  really 


FREE  WILL 


217 


could  have  done  what  we  did  not  do,  and 
that  this  fact  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with 
the  principle  that  everything  has  a  cause. 
And  for  my  part  I  must  confess  that  I  cannot 
feel  certain  that  this  may  not  be  all  that 
we  usually  mean  and  understand  by  the 
assertion  that  we  have  Free  Will ;  so  that 
those  who  deny  that  we  have  it  are  really 
denying  (though,  no  doubt,  often  uncon¬ 
sciously)  that  we  ever  should  have  acted 
differently,  even  if  we  had  willed  differently. 
It  has  been  sometimes  held  that  this  is  what 
we  mean  ;  and  I  cannot  find  any  conclusive 
argument  to  the  contrary.  And  if  it  is  what 
we  mean,  then  it  absolutely  follows  that  we 
really  have  Free  Will,  and  also  that  this  fact 
is  quite  consistent  with  the  principle  that 
everything  has  a  cause  ;  and  it  follows  also 
that  our  theory  will  be  perfectly  right,  when 
it  makes  right  and  wrong  depend  on  what 
we  could  have  done,  if  we  had  chosen. 

But,  no  doubt,  there  are  many  people  who 
will  say  that  this  is  not  sufficient  to  entitle 
us  to  say  that  we  have  Free  Will  ;  and 
they  will  say  this  for  a  reason,  which  certainly 
has  some  plausibility,  though  I  cannot 


218 


ETHICS 


satisfy  myself  that  it  is  conclusive.  They 
will  say,  namely  :  Granted  that  we  often 
should  have  acted  differently,  if  we  had 
chosen  differently,  yet  it  is  not  true  that 
we  have  Free  Will,  unless  it  is  also  often 
true  in  such  cases  that  we  could  have  chosen 
differently.  The  question  of  Free  Will  has 
been  thus  represented  as  being  merely  the 
question  whether  we  ever  could  have  chosen, 
what  we  did  not  choose,  or  ever  can  choose, 
what,  in  fact,  we  shall  not  choose.  And 
since  there  is  some  plausibility  in  this  con¬ 
tention,  it  is,  I  think,  worth  while  to  point 
out  that  here  again  it  is  absolutely  certain 
that,  in  two  different  senses,  at  least,  we 
\  often  could  have  chosen,  what,  in  fact,  we 
did  not  choose  ;  and  that  in  neither  sense 
does  this  fact  contradict  the  principle  of 
causality. 

The  first  is  simply  the  old  sense  over 
again.  If  by  saying  that  we  could  have 
done,  what  we  did  not  do,  we  often  mean 
merely  that  we  should  have  done  it,  if  we 
had  chosen  to  do  it,  then  obviously,  by 
saying  that  we  could  have  chosen  to  do 
it,  we  may  mean  merely  that  we  should 


FREE  WILL 


219 


have  so  chosen,  if  we  had  chosen  to  make 
the  choice .  And  I  think  there  is  no  doubt 
it  is  often  true  that  we  should  have  chosen 
to  do  a  particular  thing  if  we  had  chosen 
to  make  the  choice  ;  and  that  this  is  a  very 
important  sense  in  which  it  is  often  in  our 
power  to  make  a  choice.  There  certainly 
is  such  a  thing  as  making  an  effort  to  induce 
ourselves  to  choose  a  particular  course  ;  and 
I  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  often  if  we 
had  made  such  an  effort,  we  should  have  made 
a  choice,  which  we  did  not  in  fact  make. 

And  besides  this,  there  is  another  sense  in 
which,  whenever  we  have  several  different 
courses  of  action  in  view,  it  is  possible  for 
us  to  choose  any  one  of  them  ;  and  a  sense 
which  is  certainly  of  some  practical  import¬ 
ance,  even  if  it  goes  no  way  to  justify  us 
in  saying  that  we  have  Free  Will.  This 
sense  arises  from  the  fact  that  in  such  cases 
we  can  hardly  ever  know  for  certain  before¬ 
hand,  which  choice  we  actually  shall  make  ; 
and  one  of  the  commonest  senses  of  the 
word  “  possible  ”  is  that  in  which  we  call 
an  event  “  possible  ”  when  no  man  can 
know  for  certain  that  it  will  not  happen.  It 


220 


ETHICS 


follows  that  almost,  if  not  quite  always, 
when  we  make  a  choice,  after  considering 
alternatives,  it  was  possible  that  we  should 
have  chosen  one  of  these  alternatives,  which 
we  did  not  actually  choose  ;  and  often,  of 
course,  it  w^as  not  only  possible,  but  highly 
probable,  that  we  should  have  done  so. 
And  this  fact  is  certainly  of  practical  import¬ 
ance,  because  many  people  are  apt  much 
too  easily  to  assume  that  it  is  quite  certain 
that  they  will  not  make  a  given  choice, 
which  they  know  they  ought  to  make,  if  it 
were  possible  ;  and  their  belief  that  they 
will  not  make  it  tends,  of  course,  to  prevent 
them  from  making  it.  For  this  reason  it  is 
important  to  insist  that  they  can  hardly 
ever  know  for  certain  with  regard  to  any 
given  choice  that  they  will  not  make  it. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  certain  (1)  that  we 
often  should  have  acted  differently,  if  we  had 
chosen  to  ;  (2)  that  similarly  we  often  should 
have  chosen  differently,  ij  we  had  chosen  so 
to  choose  ;  and  (3)  that  it  was  almost  always 
possible  that  we  should  have  chosen  differ¬ 
ently,  in  the  sense  that  no  man  could  know 
for  certain  that  we  should  not  so  choose. 


FREE  WILL 


221 


All  these  three  things  are  facts,  and  all  of 
them  are  quite  consistent  with  the  principle 
of  causality.  Can  anybody  undertake  to 
say  for  certain  that  none  of  these  three  facts 
and  no  combination  of  them  will  justify  us 
in  saying  that  we  have  Free  Will  ?  Or, 
suppose  it  granted  that  we  have  not  Free 
Will,  unless  it  is  often  true  that  we  could 
have  chosen,  what  we  did  not  choose : — Can 
any  defender  of  Free  Will,  or  any  opponent 
of  it,  show  conclusively  that  what  he  means 
by  44  could  have  chosen  ”  in  this  proposition, 
is  anything  different  from  the  two  certain 
facts,  which  I  have  numbered  (2)  and  (3), 
or  some  combination  of  the  two  ?  Many 
people,  no  doubt,  will  still  insist  that  these 
two  facts  alone  are  by  no  means  sufficient 
to  entitle  us  to  say  that  we  have  Free  Will  : 
that  it  must  be  true  that  we  were  able  to 
choose,  in  some  quite  other  sense.  But 
nobody,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  been 
able  to  tell  us  exactly  what  that  sense  is. 
For  my  part,  I  can  find  no  conclusive  argu¬ 
ment  to  show  either  that  some  such  other 
sense  of  44  can  ”  is  necessary,  or  that  it  is 
not.  And,  therefore,  this  chapter  must 


222 


ETHICS 


conclude  with  a  doubt.  It  is,  I  think, 
possible  that,  instead  of  saying,  as  our 
theory  said,  that  an  action  is  only  right, 
when  it  produces  consequences  as  good  as 
any  which  would  have  followed  from  any  other 
action  which  the  agent  would  have  done,  if 
he  had  chosen,  we  should  say  instead  that 
it  is  right  whenever  and  only  when  the  agent 
could  not  have  done  anything  which  would 
have  produced  better  consequences :  and 
that  this  44  could  not  have  done  ”  is  not 
equivalent  to  44  would  not  have  done,  if  he 
had  chosen,”  but  is  to  be  understood  in  the 
sense,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  is  sufficient 
to  entitle  us  to  say  that  we  have  Free  Will. 
If  so,  then  our  theory  would  be  wrong,  just 
to  this  extent. 


CHAPTER  YII 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 

The  main  conclusions,  at  which  we  have 
arrived  so  far  with  regard  to  the  theory- 
stated  in  Chapters  I  and  II,  may  be  briefly 
summed  up  as  follows.  I  tried  to  show, 
first  of  all,  (1)  that  to  say  that  a  voluntary 
action  is  right ,  or  ought  to  be  done,  or  is 
wrong ,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that 
any  being  or  set  of  beings  whatever,  either 
human  or  non-human,  has  towards  it  any 
mental  attitude  whatever — either  an  attitude 
of  feeling,  or  of  willing,  or  of  thinking  some¬ 
thing  about  it ;  and  that  hence  no  proof 
to  the  effect  that  any  beings,  human  or  non¬ 
human,  have  any  such  attitude  towards  an 
action  is  sufficient  to  show  that  it  is  right, 
or  ought  to  be  done,  or  is  wrong ;  and 
(2)  similarly,  that  to  say  that  any  one  thing 
or  state  of  things  is  intrinsically  goody  or 

223 


224 


ETHICS 


intrinsically  bad ,  or  that  one  is  intrinsically 
better  than  another,  is  also  not  the  same 
thing  as  to  say  that  any  being  or  set  of 
beings  has  towards  it  any  mental  attitude 
whatever — either  an  attitude  of  feeling,  or 
of  desiring,  or  of  thinking  something  about 
it  ;  and  hence  that  here  again  no  proof  to 
the  effect  that  any  being  or  set  of  beings 
has  some  such  mental  attitude  towards  a 
given  thing  or  state  of  things  is  ever  sufficient 
to  show  that  it  is  intrinsically  good  or  bad. 
These  two  points  are  extremely  important, 
because  the  contrary  view  is  very  commonly 
held,  in  some  form  or  other,  and  because 
(though  this  is  not  always  seen),  whatever 
form  it  be  held  in,  it  is  absolutely  fatal  to 
one  or  both  of  two  very  fundamental  prin¬ 
ciples,  which  our  theory  implies.  In  many 
of  their  forms  such  views  are  fatal  to  the 
principle  (1)  that  no  action  is  ever  both  right 
and  wrong ;  and  hence  also  to  the  view 
that  there  is  any  characteristic  whatever 
which  always  belongs  to  right  actions  and 
never  to  wrong  ones  ;  and  in  all  their  forms 
they  are  fatal  to  the  principle,  (2)  that  if 
it  is  once  the  duty  of  any  being  to  do  an 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


225 


action  whose  total  effects  will  be  A 
rather  than  one  whose  total  effects  will 
be  B,  it  must  always  be  the  duty  of  any 
being  to  do  an  action  whose  total  effects 
will  be  precisely  similar  to  A  rather  than 
one  whose  total  effects  will  be  precisely 
similar  to  B,  if  he  has  to  choose  between 
them. 

I  tried  to  show,  then,  first  of  all,  that 
these  two  principles  may  be  successfully 
defended  against  this  first  line  of  attack — 
the  line  of  attack  which  consists  in  saying 
(to  put  it  shortly)  that  “  right  ”  and  “  good  ” 
are  merely  subjective  predicates.  But  we 
found  next  that  even  those  who  admit  and 
insist  (as  many  do)  that  “  right  ”  and  44  in¬ 
trinsically  good  ”  are  not  subjective  pre¬ 
dicates,  may  yet  attack  the  second  principle 
on  another  ground.  For  this  second  principle 
implies  that  the  question  whether  an  action 
is  right  or  wrong  must  always  depend  upon 
its  actual  consequences  ;  and  this  view  is 
very  commonly  disputed  on  one  or  other  of 
three  grounds,  namely,  (1)  that  it  sometimes 
depends  merely  on  the  intrinsic  nature  of 
the  action,  or,  in  other  words,  that  certain 

H 


226 


ETHICS 


kinds  of  actions  would  be  absolutely  always 
right,  and  others  absolutely  always  wrong, 
whatever  their  consequences  might  be,  or 

(2)  that  it  depends,  partly  or  wholly,  on  the 
motive  from  wrhich  the  action  is  done,  or 

(3)  that  it  depends  on  the  question  whether 
the  agent  had  reason  to  expect  that  its  con¬ 
sequences  would  be  the  best  possible.  I 
tried,  accordingly,  to  show  next  that  each  of 
these  three  views  is  untrue. 

But,  finally,  we  raised,  in  the  last  chapter, 
a  question  as  to  the  precise  sense  in  which 
right  and  wrong  do  depend  upon  the  actual 
consequences.  And  here  for  the  first  time 
we  came  upon  a  point  as  to  which  it  seemed 
very  doubtful  whether  our  theory  was  right. 
All  that  could  be  agreed  upon  was  that  a 
voluntary  action  is  right  whenever  and  only 
when  its  total  consequences  are  as  good, 
intrinsically,  as  any  that  would  have  followed 
from  any  action  which  the  agent  could  have 
done  instead.  But  we  were  unable  to  arrive 
at  any  certain  conclusion  as  to  the  precise 
sense  in  which  the  phrase  44  could  have 
must  be  understood  if  this  proposition  is  to 
be  true  ;  and  whether,  therefore,  it  is  true, 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


227 


if  we  give  to  these  words  the  precise  sense 
which  our  theory  gave  to  them. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  the  theory  stated 
in  Chapters  I  and  II  is  right  so  far  as  it 
merely  asserts  the  three  principles  (1)  That 
there  is  some  characteristic  which  belongs 
and  must  belong  to  absolutely  all  right 
voluntary  actions  and  to  no  wrong  ones  ; 
(2)  That  one  such  characteristic  consists  in 
the  fact  that  the  total  consequences  of  right 
actions  must  always  be  as  good,  intrinsically, 
as  any  which  it  was  possible  for  the  agent 
to  produce  under  the  circumstances  (it  being 
uncertain,  however,  in  what  sense  precisely 
the  word  “  possible  ”  is  to  be  understood), 
whereas  this  can  never  be  true  of  wrong 
ones  ;  and  (3)  That  if  any  set  of  conse¬ 
quences  A  is  once  intrinsically  better  than 
another  set  B,  any  set  precisely  similar  to 
A  must  always  be  intrinsically  better  than 
a  set  precisely  similar  to  B.  We  have, 
indeed,  not  considered  all  the  objections 
which  might  be  urged  against  these  three 
principles  ;  but  we  have,  I  think,  considered 
all  those  which  are  most  commonly  urged, 
with  one  single  exception.  And  I  must 

H  2 


now 


228 


ETHICS 


briefly  state  what  this  one  remaining  objec¬ 
tion  is,  before  I  go  on  to  point  out  the  respect 
in  which  this  theory  which  was  stated  in 
Chapters  I  and  II,  seems  to  me  to  be  utterly 
wrong,  in  spite  of  being  right  as  to  all  these 
three  points. 

This  one  last  objection  may  be  called  the 
objection  of  Egoism ;  and  it  consists  in 
asserting  that  no  agent  can  ever  be  under  any 
obligation  to  do  the  action,  whose  total  con¬ 
sequences  will  be  the  best  possible,  if  its  total 
effects  upon  him ,  personally,  are  not  the  best 
possible  ;  or  in  other  words  that  it  always 
would  be  right  for  an  agent  to  choose  the 
action  whose  total  effects  upon  himself  would 
be  the  best,  even  if  absolutely  all  its  effects 
(taking  into  account  its  effects  on  other  beings 
as  well)  would  not  be  the  best.  It  asserts  in 
short  that  it  can  never  be  the  duty  of  any 
agent  to  sacrifice  his  own  good  to  the  general 
good.  And  most  people,  who  take  this  view, 
are,  I  think,  content  to  assert  this,  without 
asserting  further  that  it  must  always  be  his 
positive  duty  to  prefer  his  own  good  to  the 
general  good.  That  is  to  say,  they  will  admit 
that  a  man  may  be  acting  rightly ,  even  if 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


229 


he  does  sacrifice  his  own  good  to  the  general 
good  ;  they  only  hold  that  he  will  be  acting 
equally  rightly,  if  he  does  not.  But  there  are 
some  philosophers  who  seem  to  hold  that  it 
must  always  be  an  agent’s  positive  duty  to 
do  what  is  best  for  himself- — always ,  for  in¬ 
stance,  to  do  what  will  conduce  most  to  his 
own  44  perfection,”  or  his  own  salvation,  or 
his  own  44  self-realisation  ”  ;  who  imply, 
therefore,  that  it  would  be  his  duty  so  to  act, 
even  if  the  action  in  question  did  not  have  the 
best  possible  consequences  upon  the  whole. 

Now  the  question,  whether  this  view  is  true, 
in  either  of  these  two  different  forms,  would, 
of  course,  be  of  no  practical  importance,  if  it 
were  true  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every 
action  which  most  promotes  the  general  good 
always  also  most  promotes  the  agent’s  own 
good,  and  vice  versa.  And  many  philosophers 
have  taken  great  pains  to  try  to  show  that 
this  is  the  case  :  some  have  even  tried  to  show 
that  it  must  necessarily  be  the  case.  But  it 
seems  to  me  that  none  of  the  arguments  which 
have  been  used  to  prove  this  proposition  really 
do  show  that  it  is  by  any  means  universally 
true.  A  case,  for  instance,  may  arise  in 


230 


ETHICS 


which,  if  a  man  is  to  secure  the  best  conse¬ 
quences  for  the  world  as  a  whole,  it  may  be 
absolutely  necessary  that  he  should  sacrifice 
his  own  life.  And  those  who  maintain  that, 
even  in  such  a  case,  he  will  absolutely  always 
be  securing  the  greatest  possible  amount  of 
good  for  himself,  must  either  maintain  that 
in  some  future  life  he  will  receive  goods  suffi¬ 
cient  to  compensate  him  for  all  that  he  might 
have  had  during  many  years  of  continued  life 
in  this  world — a  view  to  which  there  is  the 
objection  that  it  may  be  doubted,  whether 
we  shall  have  any  future  life  at  all,  and  that 
it  is  even  more  doubtful,  what,  if  we  shall, 
that  life  will  be  like  ;  or  else  they  must 
maintain  the  following  paradox. 

Suppose  there  are  two  men,  A  and  B,  who  up 
to  the  age  of  thirty  have  lived  lives  of  equal 
intrinsic  value;  and  that  at  that  age  it  becomes 
the  duty  of  each  of  them  to  sacrifice  his  life  for 
the  general  good.  Suppose  A  does  his  duty 
and  sacrifices  his  life,  but  B  does  not,  and 
continues  to  live  for  thirty  years  more.  Those 
who  hold  that  the  agent’s  own  good  always 
coincides  with  the  general  good,  must  then 
hold  that  B’s  sixty  years  of  life,  no  matter  how 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


231 


well  the  remaining  thirty  years  of  it  may  be 
spent,  cannot  possibly  have  so  much  in¬ 
trinsic  value  as  A’s  thirty  years.  And  surely 
this  is  an  extravagant  paradox,  however 
much  intrinsic  value  we  may  attribute  to 
those  final  moments  of  A’s  life  in  which  he 
does  his  duty  at  the  expense  of  his  life  ;  and 
however  high  we  put  the  loss  in  intrinsic  value 
to  B’s  life,  which  arises  from  the  fact  that,  in 

this  one  instance,  he  failed  to  do  his  dutv 

*/  • 

B  may,  for  instance,  repent  of  this  one  act 
and  the  whole  of  the  remainder  of  his  life 
may  be  full  of  the  highest  goods  ;  and  it  seems 
extravagant  to  maintain  that  all  the  goods 
there  may  be  in  this  last  thirty  years  of  it 
cannot  possibly  be  enough  to  make  his  life 
more  valuable,  intrinsically,  than  that  of  A. 

I  think,  therefore,  we  must  conclude  that 
a  maximum  of  true  good,  for  ourselves,  is  by 
no  means  always  secured  by  those  actions 
which  are  necessary  to  secure  a  maximum  of 
true  good  for  the  world  as  a  whole  ;  and 
hence  that  it  is  a  question  of  practical  im¬ 
portance,  whether,  in  such  cases  of  conflict,  it 
is  always  a  duty,  or  right,  for  us  to  prefer 
our  own  good  to  the  general  good.  And  this 


232 


ETHICS 


is  a  question  which,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  it  is 
impossible  to  decide  by  argument  one  way  or 
the  other.  If  any  person,  after  clearly  con¬ 
sidering  the  question,  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  can  never  be  under  any  obligation  to 
sacrifice  his  own  good  to  the  general  good, 
if  they  were  to  conflict,  or  even  that  it  would 
be  wrong  for  him  to  do  so,  it  is,  I  think,  im¬ 
possible  to  prove  that  he  is  mistaken.  But 
it  is  certainly  equally  impossible  for  him  to 
prove  that  he  is  not  mistaken.  And,  for  my 
part,  it  seems  to  me  quite  self-evident  that 
he  is  mistaken.  It  seems  to  me  quite  self- 
evident  that  it  must  always  be  our  duty  to  do 
what  will  produce  the  best  effects  upon  the 
whole ,  no  matter  how  bad  the  effects  upon 
ourselves  may  be  and  no  matter  how  much 
good  we  ourselves  may  lose  by  it. 

I  think,  therefore,  we  may  safely  reject  this 
last  objection  to  the  principle  that  it  must 
always  be  the  duty  of  every  agent  to  do  that 
one,  among  all  the  actions  which  he  can  do 
on  any  given  occasion,  whose  total  conse¬ 
quences  will  have  the  greatest  intrinsic  value  ; 
and  we  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  the 
theory  stated  in  Chapters  I  and  II  is  right  as 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


233 


to  all  the  three  points  yet  considered,  except 
for  the  doubt  as  to  the  precise  sense  in  which 
the  words  “  can  do  ”  are  to  be  understood 
in  this  proposition.  But  obviously  on  any 
theory  which  maintains,  as  this  one  does,  that 
right  and  wrong  depend  on  the  intrinsic  value 
of  the  consequences  of  our  actions,  it  is  ex¬ 
tremely  important  to  decide  rightly  what 
kinds  of  consequences  are  intrinsically  better 
or  worse  than  others.  And  it  is  on  this  im¬ 
portant  point  that  the  theory  in  question 
seems  to  me  to  take  an  utterly  wrong  view. 
It  maintains,  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  II,  that 
any  whole  which  contains  more  pleasure  is 
always  intrinsically  better  than  one  which 
contains  less,  and  that  none  can  be  intrinsically 
better,  unless  it  contains  more  pleasure  ;  it 
being  remembered  that  the  phrase  44  more 
pleasure,”  in  this  statement,  is  not  to  be 
understood  as  meaning  strictly  what  it  says, 
but  as  standing  for  any  one  of  five  different 
alternatives,  the  nature  of  which  was  fully 
explained  in  our  first  two  chapters.  And  the 
last  question  we  have  to  raise,  is,  therefore  : 
Is  this  proposition  true  or  not  ?  and  if  not, 
what  is  the  right  answer  to  the  question  : 


234 


ETHICS 


What  kinds  of  things  are  intrinsically  better 
or  worse  than  others  ? 

And  first  of  all  it  is  important  to  be  quite 
clear  as  to  how  this  question  is  related  to 
another  question,  which  is  very  liable  to  be 
confused  with  it :  namely  the  question 
whether  the  proposition  which  was  dis¬ 
tinguished  in  Chapter  I,  as  forming  the  first 
part  of  the  theory  there  stated,  is  true  or 
not :  I  mean,  the  proposition  that  quantity 
of  pleasure  is  a  correct  criterion  of  right  and 
wrong,  or  that,  in  this  world,  it  always  is, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  our  duty  to  do  the  action 
which  will  produce  a  maximum  of  pleasure, 
or  (for  this  is,  perhaps,  more  commonly  held) 
to  do  the  action  which,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
will  produce  such  a  maximum.  This  latter 
proposition  has  been  far  more  often  expressly 
held  than  the  proposition  that  what  contains 
more  pleasure  is  always  intrinsically  better 
than  what  contains  less  ;  and  many  people 
may  be  inclined  to  think  they  are  free  to 
maintain  it,  even  if  they  deny  that  the 
intrinsic  value  of  every  whole  is  always  in 
proportion  to  the  quantity  of  pleasure  it 
contains.  And  so,  in  a  sense ,  they  are ; 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


235 


for  it  is  quite  possible,  theoretically ,  that 
quantity  of  pleasure  should  always  be  a 
correct  criterion  of  right  and  wrong,  here 
in  this  world,  even  if  intrinsic  value  is  not 
always  in  exact  proportion  to  quantity  of 
pleasure.  But  though  this  is  theoretically 
possible,  it  is,  I  think,  easy  to  see  that  it  is 
extremely  unlikely  to  be  the  case.  For  if 
it  were  the  case,  what  it  would  involve  is 
this.  It  would  involve  our  maintaining  that, 
where  the  total  consequences  of  any  actual 
voluntary  action  have  more  intrinsic  value 
than  those  of  the  possible  alternatives,  it 
absolutely  always  happens  to  be  true  that 
they  also  contain  more  pleasure,  although, 
in  other  cases,  we  know  that  degree  of 
intrinsic  value  is  by  no  means  always  in 
proportion  to  quantity  of  pleasure  contained. 
And,  of  course,  it  is  theoretically  possible 
that  this  should  be  so  :  it  is  possible  that 
the  total  consequences  of  actual  voluntary 
actions  should  form  a  complete  exception  to 
the  general  rule  :  that,  in  their  case,  what 
has  more  intrinsic  value  should  absolutely 
always  also  contain  more  pleasure,  although, 
in  other  cases,  this  is  by  no  means  always 


236 


ETHICS 


true  :  but  anybody  can  see,  I  think,  that, 
in  the  absence  of  strict  proof  that  it  is  so, 
the  probabilities  are  all  the  other  way.  It 
is,  indeed,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  quite  impossible 
absolutely  to  prove  either  that  it  is  so  or 
that  it  is  not  so  ;  because  actual  actions  in 
this  world  are  liable  to  have  such  an  immense 
number  of  indirect  and  remote  consequences, 
which  we  cannot  trace,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  be  quite  certain  how  the  total  consequences 
of  any  two  actions  will  compare  either  in 
respect  of  intrinsic  value,  or  in  respect  of 
the  quantity  of  pleasure  they  contain.  It 
may ,  therefore,  possibly  be  the  case  that 
quantity  of  pleasure  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
a  correct  criterion  of  right  and  wrong,  even 
if  intrinsic  value  is  not  always  in  proportion 
to  quantity  of  pleasure  contained.  But  it 
is  impossible  to  prove  that  it  is  a  correct 
criterion,  except  by  assuming  that  intrinsic 
value  always  is  in  proportion  to  quantity  of 
pleasure.  And  most  of  those  who  have  held 
the  former  view  have,  I  think,  in  fact  made 
this  assumption,  even  if  they  have  not 
definitely  realised  that  they  were  making  it. 

Is  this  assumption  true,  then  ?  Is  it  true 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


237 


that  one  whole  will  be  intrinsically  better 
than  another,  whenever  and  only  when  it 
contains  more  pleasure,  no  matter  what  the 
two  may  be  like  in  other  respects  ?  It  seems 
to  me  almost  impossible  that  any  one,  who 
fully  realises  the  consequences  of  such  a 
view,  can  possibly  hold  that  it  is  true.  It 
involves  our  saying,  for  instance,  that  a 
world  in  which  absolutely  nothing  except 
pleasure  existed — no  knowledge,  no  love,  no 
enjoyment  of  beauty,  no  moral  qualities — 
must  yet  be  intrinsically  better — better  worth 
creating — provided  only  the  total  quantity 
of  pleasure  in  it  were  the  least  bit  greater, 
than  one  in  which  all  these  things  existed 
as  well  as  pleasure.  It  involves  our  saying 
that,  even  if  the  total  quantity  of  pleasure 
in  each  was  exactly  equal,  yet  the  fact  that 
all  the  beings  in  the  one  possessed  in  addition 
knowledge  of  many  different  kinds  and  a 
full  appreciation  of  all  that  was  beautiful  or 
worthy  of  love  in  their  world,  whereas  none 
of  the  beings  in  the  other  possessed  any  of 
these  things,  would  give  us  no  reason  what¬ 
ever  for  preferring  the  former  to  the  latter. 
It  involves  our  saying  that,  for  instance,  the 


238 


ETHICS 


state  of  mind  of  a  drunkard,  when  he  is 
intensely  pleased  with  breaking  crockery,  is 
just  as  valuable,  in  itself — just  as  well  worth 
having,  as  that  of  a  man  who  is  fully  realising 
all  that  is  exquisite  in  the  tragedy  of  King 
Lear,  provided  only  the  mere  quantity  of 
pleasure  in  both  cases  is  the  same.  Such 
instances  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  they  constitute  a 
reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  view  that  intrinsic 
value  is  always  in  proportion  to  quantity 
of  pleasure.  Of  course,  here  again,  the 
question  is  quite  incapable  of  proof  either 
way.  And  if  anybody,  after  clearly  con¬ 
sidering  the  issue,  does  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  no  one  kind  of  enjoyment  is  ever  in¬ 
trinsically  better  than  another,  provided 
only  that  the  pleasure  in  both  is  equally 
intense,  and  that,  if  we  could  get  as  much 
pleasure  in  the  world,  without  needing  to 
have  any  knowledge,  or  any  moral  qualities, 
or  any  sense  of  beauty,  as  we  can  get  with 
them,  then  all  these  things  would  be  entirely 
superfluous,  there  is  no  way  of  proving  that 
he  is  wrong.  But  it  seems  to  me  almost 
impossible  that  anybody,  who  does  really 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


239 


get  the  question  clear,  should  take  such  a 
view  ;  and,  if  anybody  were  to,  I  think  it 
is  self-evident  that  he  would  be  wrong. 

It  may,  however,  be  asked  :  If  the  matter 
is  as  plain  as  this,  how  has  it  come  about 
that  anybody  ever  has  adopted  the  view 
that  intrinsic  value  is  always  in  proportion 
to  quantity  of  pleasure,  or  has  ever  argued, 
as  if  it  were  so  ?  And  I  think  one  chief 
answer  to  this  question  is  that  those  who 
have  done  so  have  not  clearly  realised  all 
the  consequences  of  their  view,  partly  because 
they  have  been  too  exclusively  occupied 
with  the  particular  question  as  to  whether, 
in  the  case  of  the  total  consequences  of  actual 
voluntary  actions,  degree  of  intrinsic  value 
is  not  always  in  proportion  to  quantity  of 
pleasure — a  question,  which,  as  has  been 
admitted,  is,  in  itself,  much  more  obscure. 
But  there  is,  I  think,  another  reason,  which 
is  worth  mentioning,  because  it  introduces 
us  to  a  principle  of  great  importance.  It 
may,  in  fact,  be  held,  with  great  plausibility, 
that  no  whole  can  ever  have  any  intrinsic 
value  unless  it  contains  some  pleasure  ;  and 
it  might  be  thought,  at  first  sight,  that  this 


240 


ETHICS 


reasonable,  and  perhaps  true,  view  could 
not  possibly  lead  to  the  wholly  unreasonable 
one  that  intrinsic  value  is  always  in  propor - 
tion  to  quantity  of  pleasure  :  it  might  seem 
obvious  that  to  say  that  nothing  can  be 
valuable  without  pleasure  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  saying  that  intrinsic  value  is 
always  in  proportion  to  pleasure.  And  it  is, 
I  think,  in  fact  true  that  the  two  views  are 
really  as  different  as  they  seem,  and  that 
the  latter  does  not  at  all  follow  from  the 
former.  But,  if  we  look  a  little  closer,  we 
may,  I  think,  see  a  reason  why  the  latter 
should  very  naturally  have  been  thought  to 
follow  from  the  former. 

The  reason  is  as  follows.  If  we  say  that 
no  whole  can  ever  be  intrinsically  good, 
unless  it  contains  some  pleasure,  we  are,  of 
course,  saying  that  if  from  any  whole,  which 
is  intrinsically  good,  we  were  to  subtract 
all  the  pleasure  it  contains,  the  remainder, 
whatever  it  might  be,  would  have  no  in¬ 
trinsic  goodness  at  all,  but  must  always  be 
either  intrinsically  bad,  or  else  intrinsically 
indifferent :  and  this  (if  we  remember  our 
definition  of  intrinsic  value)  is  the  same 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


241 


thing  as  to  say  that  this  remainder  actually 
has  no  intrinsic  goodness  at  all,  but  always 
is  either  positively  bad  or  indifferent.  Let 
us  call  the  pleasure  which  such  a  whole 
contains,  A,  and  the  whole  remainder,  what¬ 
ever  it  may  be,  B.  We  are  then  saying 
that  the  whole  A  +  B  is  intrinsically  good, 
but  that  B  is  not  intrinsically  good  at  all. 
Surely  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  intrinsic 
value  of  A  +  B  cannot  possibly  be  greater 
than  that  of  A  by  itself  ?  How,  it  may  be 
asked,  could  it  possibly  be  otherwise  ?  How, 
by  adding  to  A  something,  namely  B,  which 
has  no  intrinsic  goodness  at  all,  could  we 
possibly  get  a  whole  which  has  more  intrinsic 
value  than  A  ?  It  may  naturally  seem  to 
be  self-evident  that  we  could  not.  But,  if 
so,  then  it  absolutely  follows  that  we  can 
never  increase  the  value  of  any  whole  what¬ 
ever  except  by  adding  'pleasure  to  it  :  we 
may,  of  course,  lessen  its  value,  by  adding 
other  things,  e.g.  by  adding  pain  ;  but  we 
can  never  increase  it  except  by  adding 
pleasure. 

Now  from  this  it  does  not,  of  course, 
follow  strictly  that  the  intrinsic  value  of  a 


242 


ETHICS 


whole  is  always  in  proportion  to  the  quan¬ 
tity  of  pleasure  it  contains  in  the  special 
sense  in  which  we  have  throughout  been 
using  this  expression — that  is  to  say,  as 
meaning  that  it  is  in  proportion  to  the 
excess  of  pleasure  over  pain,  in  one  of  the 
five  senses  explained  in  Chapter  I.  But  it 
is  surely  very  natural  to  think  that  it  does. 
And  it  does  follow  that  we  must  be  wrong 
in  the  reasons  we  gave  for  disputing  this 
proposition.  It  does  follow  that  we  must 
be  wrong  in  thinking  that  by  adding  such 
things  as  knowledge  or  a  sense  of  beauty 
to  a  world  which  contained  a  certain  amount 
of  pleasure,  without  adding  any  more  pleasure, 
we  could  increase  the  intrinsic  value  of  that 
world.  If,  therefore,  we  are  to  dispute  the 
proposition  that  intrinsic  value  is  always 
in  proportion  to  quantity  of  pleasure  we 
must  dispute  this  argument.  But  the  argu¬ 
ment  may  seem  to  be  almost  indisputable. 
It  has,  in  fact,  been  used  as  an  argument  in 
favour  of  the  proposition  that  intrinsic  value 
is  always  in  proportion  to  quantity  of 
pleasure,  and  I  think  it  has  probably  had 
much  influence  in  inducing  people  to  adopt 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


243 


that  view,  even  if  they  have  not  expressly 
put  it  in  this  form. 

How,  then,  can  we  dispute  this  argument  ? 
We  might,  of  course,  do  so,  by  rejecting  the 
proposition  that  no  whole  can  ever  be 
intrinsically  good,  unless  it  contains  some 
pleasure ;  but,  for  my  part,  though  I  don’t 
feel  certain  that  this  proposition  is  true,  I 
also  don’t  feel  at  all  certain  that  it  is  not 
true.  The  part  of  the  argument  which  it 
seems  to  me  certainly  can  and  ought  to  be 
disputed  is  another  part — namely, the  assump¬ 
tion  that,  where  a  whole  contains  two  factors, 
A  and  B,  and  one  of  these,  B,  has  no  intrinsic 
goodness  at  all,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
whole  cannot  be  greater  than  that  of  the 
other  factor,  A.  This  assumption,  I  think, 
obviously  rests  on  a  still  more  general  assump¬ 
tion,  of  which  it  is  only  a  special  case.  The 
general  assumption  is  :  That  where  a  whole 
consists  of  two  factors  A  and  B,  the  amount 
by  which  its  intrinsic  value  exceeds  that  of 
one  of  these  two  factors  must  always  be 
equal  to  that  of  the  other  factor.  Our 
special  case  will  follow  from  this  general 
assumption  :  because  it  will  follow  that  if 


244 


ETHICS 


B  be  intrinsically  indifferent ,  that  is  to  say, 
if  its  intrinsic  value  =  0,  then  the  amount 
by  which  the  value  of  the  whole  A+B 
exceeds  the  value  of  A  must  also  =  0,  that 
is  to  say,  the  value  of  the  whole  must  be 
precisely  equal  to  that  of  A  ;  while  if  B  be 
intrinsically  bad,  that  is  to  say,  if  its  intrinsic 
value  is  less  than  0,  then  the  amount  by 
which  the  value  of  A+B  will  exceed  that  of 
A  will  also  be  less  than  0,  that  is  to  say, 
the  value  of  the  whole  will  be  less  than  that 
of  A.  Our  special  case  does  then  follow 
from  the  general  assumption  ;  and  nobody, 
I  think,  would  maintain  that  the  special 
case  was  true  without  maintaining  that  the 
general  assumption  was  also  true.  The 
general  assumption  may,  indeed,  very  natur¬ 
ally  seem  to  be  self-evident  :  it  has,  I  think, 
been  generally  assumed  that  it  is  so  :  and 
it  may  seem  to  be  a  mere  deduction  from 
the  laws  of  arithmetic.  But,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  it  is  not  a  mere  deduction  from  the  laws 
of  arithmetic,  and,  so  far  from  being  self- 
evident,  is  certainly  untrue. 

Let  us  see  exactly  what  we  are  saying,  if  we 
deny  it.  We  are  saying  that  the  fact  that  A 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


245 


and  B  both  exist  together,  together  with  the 
fact  that  they  have  to  one  another  any  relation 
which  they  do  happen  to  have  (when  they 
exist  together,  they  always  must  have  some 
relation  to  one  another ;  and  the  precise 
nature  of  the  relation  certainly  may  in  some 
cases  make  a  great  difference  to  the  value 
of  the  whole  state  of  things,  though,  perhaps, 
it  need  not  in  all  cases) — that  these  two 
facts  together  must  have  a  certain  amount 
of  intrinsic  value,  that  is  to  say  must  be 
either  intrinsically  good,  or  intrinsically  bad, 
or  intrinsically  indifferent,  and  that  the 
amount  by  which  this  value  exceeds  the 
value  which  the  existence  of  A  would  have, 
if  A  existed  quite  alone,  need  not  be  equal 
to  the  value  which  the  existence  of  B  would 
have,  if  B  existed  quite  alone.  This  is  all 
that  we  are  saying.  And  can  any  one 
pretend  that  such  a  view  necessarily  con¬ 
tradicts  the  laws  of  arithmetic  ?  or  that  it 
is  self-evident  that  it  cannot  be  true  ?  I 
cannot  see  any  ground  for  saying  so  ;  and 
if  there  is  no  ground,  then  the  argument 
which  sought  to  show  that  we  can  never 
add  to  the  value  of  any  whole  except 


246 


ETHICS 


by  adding  pleasure  to  it,  is  entirely  base¬ 
less. 

If,  therefore,  we  reject  the  theory  that 
intrinsic  value  is  always  in  proportion  to 
quantity  of  pleasure,  it  does  seem  as  if  we 
may  be  compelled  to  accept  the  principle 
that  the  amount  by  which  the  value  of  a  whole 
exceeds  that  oj  one  oj  its  factors  is  not  neces¬ 
sarily  equal  to  that  of  the  remaining  factor — 
a  principle  which,  if  true,  is  very  important 
in  many  other  cases.  But,  though  at  first 
sight  this  principle  may  seem  paradoxical, 
there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  accept  it ;  while  there  are  other  inde¬ 
pendent  reasons  why  we  should  accept  it. 
And,  in  any  case,  it  seems  quite  clear  that 
the  degree  of  intrinsic  value  of  a  whole  is 
not  always  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of 
pleasure  it  contains. 

But,  if  we  do  reject  this  theory,  what,  it 
may  be  asked,  can  we  substitute  for  it  ? 
How  can  we  answer  the  question,  what  kinds 
of  consequences  are  intrinsically  better  or 
worse  than  others  ? 

We  may,  I  think,  say,  first  of  all,  that 
for  the  same  reason  for  which  we  have 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


247 


rejected  the  view  that  intrinsic  value  is 
always  in  proportion  to  quantity  of  pleasure, 
we  must  also  reject  the  view  that  it  is  always 
in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  any  other 
single  factor  whatever.  Whatever  single 
kind  of  thing  may  be  proposed  as  a  measure 
of  intrinsic  value,  instead  of  pleasure — 
whether  knowledge,  or  virtue,  or  wisdom, 
or  love — it  is,  I  think,  quite  plain  that  it 
is  not  such  a  measure  ;  because  it  is  quite 
plain  that,  however  valuable  any  one  of 
these  things  may  be,  we  may  always  add  to 
the  value  of  a  whole  which  contains  any  one 
of  them,  not  only  by  adding  more  of  that 
one,  but  also  by  adding  something  else  instead. 
Indeed,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no 
characteristic  whatever  which  always  dis¬ 
tinguishes  every  whole  which  has  greater 
intrinsic  value  from  every  whole  which  has 
less,  except  the  fundamental  one  that  it 
would  always  be  the  duty  of  every  agent 
to  prefer  the  better  to  the  worse,  if  he  had 
to  choose  between  a  pair  of  actions,  of  which 
they  would  be  the  sole  effects.  And  similarly, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no  characteristic 
whatever  which  belongs  to  all  things  that 


248 


ETHICS 


are  intrinsically  good  and  only  to  them — 
except  simply  the  one  that  they  all  are 
intrinsically  good  and  ought  always  to  be 
preferred  to  nothing  at  all ,  if  we  had  to 
choose  between  an  action  whose  sole  effect 
would  be  one  of  them  and  one  which  would 
have  no  effects  whatever.  The  fact  is  that 
the  view  which  seems  to  me  to  be  true  is 
the  one  which,  apart  from  theories,  I  think 
every  one  would  naturally  take,  namely, 
that  there  are  an  immense  variety  of  different 
things,  all  of  which  are  intrinsically  good ; 
and  that  though  all  these  things  may  perhaps 
have  some  characteristic  in  common ,  their 
variety  is  so  great  that  they  have  none, 
which,  besides  being  common  to  them  all, 
is  also  peculiar  to  them — that  is  to  say, 
which  never  belongs  to  anything  which  is 
intrinsically  bad  or  indifferent.  All  that 
can,  I  think,  be  done  by  way  of  making 
plain  what  kinds  of  things  are  intrinsically 
good  or  bad,  and  what  are  better  or  worse 
than  others,  is  to  classify  some  of  the  chief 
kinds  of  each,  pointing  out  what  the  factors 
are  upon  which  their  goodness  or  badness 
depends.  And  I  think  this  is  one  of  the 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


249 


most  profitable  things  which  can  be  done 
in  Ethics,  and  one  which  has  been  too  much 
neglected  hitherto.  But  I  have  not  space 
to  attempt  it  here. 

I  have  only  space  for  two  final  remarks. 
The  first  is  that  there  do  seem  to  be  two 
important  characteristics,  which  are  common 
to  absolutely  all  intrinsic  goods,  though  not 
peculiar  to  them.  Namely  (1)  it  does  seem 
as  if  nothing  can  be  an  intrinsic  good  unless 
it  contains  both  some  feeling  and  also  some 
other  form  of  consciousness  ;  and,  as  we  have 
said  before,  it  seems  possible  that  amongst 
the  feelings  contained  must  always  be  some 
amount  of  pleasure.  And  (2)  it  does  also 
seem  as  if  every  intrinsic  good  must  be  a  com¬ 
plex  whole  containing  a  considerable  variety 
of  different  factors — as  if,  for  instance,  nothing 
so  simple  as  pleasure  by  itself,  however  intense, 
could  ever  be  any  good.  But  it  is  important 
to  insist  (though  it  is  obvious)  that  neither  of 
these  characteristics  is  peculiar  to  intrinsic 
goods  :  they  may  obviously  also  belong  to 
things  bad  and  indifferent.  Indeed,  as  regards 
the  first,  it  is  not  only  true  that  many  wholes 
which  contain  both  feeling  and  some  other 


250 


ETHICS 


form  of  consciousness  are  intrinsically  bad  ; 
but  it  seems  also  to  be  true  that  nothing  can 
be  intrinsically  bad,  unless  it  contains  some 
feeling. 

The  other  final  remark  is  that  we  must  be 
very  careful  to  distinguish  the  two  questions 
(1)  whether,  and  in  what  degree,  a  thing  is 
intrinsically  good  and  bad,  and  (2)  whether, 
and  in  what  degree,  it  is  capable  of  adding  to 
or  subtracting  from  the  intrinsic  value  of  a 
whole  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  from  a  third, 
entirely  different  question,  namely  (3)  whether, 
and  in  what  degree,  a  thing  is  useful  and  has 
good  effects,  or  harmful  and  has  bad  effects. 
All  three  questions  are  very  liable  to  be  con¬ 
fused,  oecause,  in  common  life,  we  apply  the 
names  good  ”  and  4  4  bad  5  5  to  things  of  all 
three  kinds  indifferently  :  when  we  say  that 
a  thing  is  “  good  ”  we  may  mean  either  (1) 
that  it  is  intrinsically  good  or  (2)  that  it  adds 
to  the  value  of  many  intrinsically  good  wholes 
or  (3)  that  it  is  useful  or  has  good  effects  ;  and 
similarly  when  we  say  that  a  thing  is  bad  we 
may  mean  any  one  of  the  three  corresponding 
things.  And  such  confusion  is  very  liable  to 
lead  to  mistakes,  of  which  the  following  are, 


INTRINSIC  VALUE 


251 


I  think,  the  commonest.  In  the  first  place, 
people  are  apt  to  assume  with  regard  to 
things,  which  really  are  very  good  indeed  in 
senses  (1)  or  (2),  that  they  are  scarcely  any 
good  at  all,  simply  because  they  do  not  seem 
to  be  of  much  use — that  is  to  say,  to  lead  to 
further  good  effects  ;  and  similarly,  with 
regard  to  things  which  really  are  very  bad  in 
senses  (1)  or  (2),  it  is  very  commonly  assumed 
that  there  cannot  be  much,  if  any,  harm  in 
them,  simply  because  they  do  not  seem  to 
lead  to  further  bad  results.  Nothing  is  com¬ 
moner  than  to  find  people  asking  of  a  good 
thing  :  What  use  is  it  ?  and  concluding  that, 
if  it  is  no  use,  it  cannot  be  any  good  ;  or 
asking  of  a  bad  thing  :  What  harm  does  it  do  ? 
and  concluding  that  if  it  does  no  harm,  there 
cannot  be  any  harm  in  it.  Or,  again,  by  a 
converse  mistake,  of  things  which  really  are 
very  useful,  but  are  not  good  at  all  in  senses 
(1)  and  (2),  it  is  very  commonly  assumed  that 
they  must  be  good  in  one  or  both  of  these  two 
senses.  Or  again,  of  things,  which  really  are 
very  good  in  senses  (1)  and  (2),  it  is  assumed 
that,  because  they  are  good,  they  cannot 
possibly  do  harm.  Or  finally,  of  things, 


252 


ETHICS 


which  are  neither  intrinsically  good  nor  useful, 
it  is  assumed  that  they  cannot  be  any  good 
at  all,  although  in  fact  they  are  very  good  in 
sense  (2).  All  these  mistakes  are  liable  to 
occur,  because,  in  fact,  the  degree  of  goodness 
or  badness  of  a  thing  in  any  one  of  these  three 
senses  is  by  no  means  always  in  proportion 
to  the  degree  of  its  goodness  or  badness  in 
either  of  the  other  two  ;  but  if  we  are  careful 
to  distinguish  the  three  different  questions, 
they  can,  I  think,  all  be  avoided. 


NOTE  ON  BOOKS 


Ip  the  reader  wishes  to  form  an  impartial  judgment 
as  to  what  the  fundamental  problems  of  Ethics  really 
are,  and  what  is  the  true  answer  to  them,  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  that  he  should  not  confine  himself  to 
reading  works  of  any  one  single  type,  but  should  realise 
what  extremely  different  sorts  of  things  have  seemed 
to  different  writers,  of  acknowledged  reputation,  to  be 
the  most  important  things  to  be  said  about  the  subject. 
For  this  purpose  he  should,  I  think,  read,  if  possible,  and 
compare  with  one  another,  all  of  the  following  works : — 

1.  Some  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato  (translated  by 
Jowett).  Among  the  shorter  dialogues  the  Protagoras, 
the  Gorgias,  and  the  Philebus  deal  almost  exclusively 
with  fundamental  ethical  questions,  and  may  be  taken 
as  typical  examples  of  Plato’s  method  of  dealing  with 
Ethics ;  but  the  reader  should,  if  possible,  read  also 
the  whole  of  the  Republic,  because,  though,  in  the  main, 
it  is  concerned  with  points  of  comparative  detail,  it 
contains,  in  various  places,  discussions  which  are  of 
great  importance  for  understanding  Plato’s  general  view. 

2.  Aristotle’s  Nicomachean  Ethics.  (There  are  several 
English  translations.) 

3.  Hume’s  Enquiry  concerning  the  Principles  of  Morals. 

4.  Kant’s  Fundamental  Principles  of  the  Metaphysic 
of  Morals.  (Translated,  along  with  other  works,  under 
the  title  Kant's  Theory  of  Ethics ,  by  T.  K.  Abbott : 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.) 

5.  John  Stuart  Mill’s  Utilitarianism. 

6.  Henry  Sidgwick’s  Methods  of  Ethics  (Macmillan 
&  Co.). 

253 


254 


ETHICS 


7.  Herbert  Spencer’s  Data  of  Ethics  (forming  the  first 
part  of  his  two  volumes  on  The  Principles  of  Ethics , 
but  also  published  separately). 

8.  T.  H.  Green’s  Prolegomena  to  Ethics  (Clarendon 
Press). 

I  have  selected  these  works  as  being  enough,  but  not 
more  than  enough,  to  give  a  sufficient  idea  of  the 
extremely  different  way  in  which  writers,  who  are  still 
considered  by  many  people  to  be  among  the  best  worth 
reading  on  the  subject,  have  dealt  with  it.  No  doubt, 
in  some  cases,  other  works,  equally  well  worth  reading, 
and  equally  typical  of  the  sort  of .  differences  I  want  to 
emphasise,  might  be  substituted  for  some  of  those  I 
have  mentioned ;  but  these  are,  I  think,  as  good  as  any 
for  the  purposes  of  illustration,  and  hardly  one  of  them 
could  be  omitted  without  serious  loss,  unless  some  other 
work,  typical  of  the  same  method  of  treatment,  were 
substituted  for  it. 

For  guidance  in  his  further  reading,  so  far  as  writers 
no  longer  living  are  concerned,  the  reader  may  be  referred 
to  Sidgwick’s  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Ethics  (Macmillan 
&  Co.),  from  which  he  will  be  able  to  judge  what  other 
writers  it  is  likely  to  be  most  profitable  for  him  to  study, 
and  which  is  also  well  worth  reading  on  its  own  account. 
And,  if  he  wishes  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
principal  works  on  Ethics,  which  have  been  written  by 
writers  still  living,  I  think  I  can  hardly  do  better  than 
recommend  him  to  read,  first  of  all,  Dr.  Hastings  Rash- 
dall’s  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil  (Clarendon  Press,  1907). 
This  book  will,  I  think,  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  sort  of 
questions  which  are  still  being  discussed  at  the  present 
day,  and  it  also  contains  references  to  the  most  important 
works  of  other  living  writers,  sufficient  to  enable  the 
reader  to  make  his  own  choice  of  further  reading. 

For  further  explanation  of  the  views  advocated  in  the 
present  work  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  author’s 
Principia  Ethica  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1903), 
which  presents  the  same  general  view  in  a  rather  different 
form,  and  which  also  contains  discussions  on  various 
points  entirely  omitted  here  from  lack  of  space. 


INDEX 


Adultery,  83 

Approval,  ambiguity  of,  119-20 
feeling  of,  90,  94 

Balance  of  pleasure,  25 
Beauty,  237 

Better,  ambiguity  of,  63-4 
“  intrinsically,”  57-8 

Can,  meanings  of,  197-222 
Causality,  208-11 
Class  of  actions,  82-4,  133-4 
Command,  146 
Commandments,  Ten,  146 
Could,  30 

meanings  of,  197-222 
Crime  and  disease,  215-6 
Criterion,  43,  234-6 

Desire,  and  good,  159-60,  164-5 
and  pleasure,  159-60 
Disease  and  crime,  215-16 
Duty,  16 

and  expediency,  172-4 
and  good,  169 
and  right,  31-8 

Egoism,  228-32 
Equivalence,  61 

Ethics,  fundamental  questions  of, 
8-9 

and  Psychology,  130-2 
Expediency,  172^-4 
Expression  and  meaning,  125 


Fatalism,  213 

Feeling,  and  good,  167-8,  249 
and  opinion,  94,  119-20 
Forbid,  145 

Free  Will,  202-4,  210-11 

God,  19,  20,  149,  151,  154 
Good,  ambiguity  of,  69-71,  161, 
250—2 

and  desire,  159-60,  164-5 
and  feeling,  157-69 
“  for  its  own  sake,”  73-6 
“  general  ”  and  “  private,”  229- 
32 

“  intrinsically,”  65-6 
and  pleasure,  233-46 
and  right,  65-6,  72-3,  168-9 
“  ultimate,”  73-6 
Goods,  variety  of  intrinsic,  248 

Intrinsic.  See  Better,  Good, 
Value 

Justice,  178-80 

Knowledge,  and  opinion,  125-8 
value  of,  237,  247 

Law,  moral  and  legal,  147-9 
Love,  237,  247 

Maximum,  balance  of  pleasure,  25 
of  pleasure,  25 


255 


256 


INDEX 


Meaning  and  expression,  125 
Moral  judgments,  different  kinds 
of,  185-90 
origin  of,  115-8 
uncertainty  of,  126-8,  190-1 
Moral  rules,  unconditional,  53-5, 
138 

universal  and  general,  175-9 
Motives,  182-90 
Murder,  82-3,  175,  178 

Opinion,  and  feeling,  94,  119-20 
and  knowledge,  125-8 
Ought,  and  commands,  146-155 
and  right,  31-8 

Pain,  excess  of,  over  pleasure,  22 
Perfection,  229 

Pleasure,  as  criterion  of  right, 
234-6 

and  desire,  159-60 
excess  of,  over  pain,  21 
maximum  of,  25 
value  of,  233-246 
Possibility,  meanings  of,  197-222 

Reason,  150,  151 

Right,  and  actual  consequences, 
190-5 


Right,  criterion  of,  43-4,  234-6 
and  duty,  31-8 
equally,  33 
and  good,  72,  168-9 
and  motives,  182-90 
and  ought,  31-8 
and  wrong,  31-8,  80-7 

Salvation,  229 
Self,  “  True,”  150 
Self-realisation,  229 
Subjective,  225 

Useful,  250-2 
Utilitarianism,  77-8 


Value,  ambiguity  of,  72 

“intrinsic,”  57-8,  64,  72,  162 
Virtue,  247 

Voluntary,  defined,  13-6 


Will,  Free,  defined,  202-4 
and  ought,  145,  155 
“  Pure,”  150 
“  Universal,”  150 
Wisdom,  247 
Wrong.  See  Right. 


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37.  PEOPLES  &  PROBLEMS  OF  INDIA 

By  Sir  T.  W.  Holderness,  K.C.S.I.,  Secretary  of  the  Revenue,  Statistics, 
and  Commerce  Department  of  the  India  Office.  “  Just  the  book  which  news¬ 
paper  readers  require  to-day,  and  a  marvel  of  comprehensiveness.” — Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

42.  ROME 

By  W.  Warde  Fowler,  M.A.  “  A  masterly  sketch  of  Roman  character  and 
of  what  it  did  for  the  world.” — The  Spectator.  “It  has  all  the  lucidity  and 
charm  of  presentation  we  expect  from  this  writer.” — Manchester  Guardian. 

48.  THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 

By  F.  L.  Paxson,  Professor  of  American  History,  Wisconsin  University. 
(With  Maps.)  “A  stirring  study.” — The  Guardian. 

51.  WARFARE  IN  BRITAIN 

By  Hii.aire  Belloc,  M.A.  An  account  of  how  and  where  great  battles  of  the 
past  were  fought  on  British  soil,  the  roads  and  physical  conditions  determining 
the  island’s  strategy,  the  castles,  walled  towns,  etc. 

55.  MASTER  MARINERS 

By  J.  R.  Spears.  The  romance  of  the  sea,  the  great  voyages  of  discovery, 
naval  battles,  the  heroism  of  the  sailor,  and  the  development  of  the  ship,  from 
ancient  times  to  to-day. 

In  Preparation 

ANCIENT  GREECE.  By  Prof.  Gilbert  Murray,  D.Litt.,  LL.D.,  F.B.A 
ANCIENT  EGYPT.  By  F.  Ll.  Griffith,  M.A. 

THE  ANCIENT  EAST.  By  D.  G.  Hogarth,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.  By  Herbert  Fisher,  M.A. ,  F.B.A. 
PREHISTORIC  BRITAIN.  By  Robert  Munro,  M.A.,  M.D.,  LL.D. 
THE  BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.  By  Norman  H.  Baynes. 

THE  REFORMA  TION.  By  Principal  Lindsay,  LL.D. 

NAPOLEON.  By  Herbert  Fisher,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  RUSSIA.  By  Prof.  Milyoukov. 

MODERN  TURKEY.  By  D.  G.  Hogarth,  M.A. 

FRANCE  OF  TO-DAY.  By  Albert  Thomas. 

GERMANY  OF  TO -DA  Y.  By  Charles  Tower. 

THE  NA  VY  AND  SEA  POWER.  By  David  Hannay. 

HISTORY  OF  SCOTLAND.  By  R.  S.  Rait,  M.A. 

SOUTH  AMERICA.  By  Prof.  W.  R.  Shepherd. 

LONDON.  By  Sir  Laurence  Gomme,  F.S.A. 

HISTORY  AND  LITERATURE  OF  SPAIN.  By  J.  Fitzmaurice- 
Kelly,  F.B.A.,  Litt.D. 


Literature  and  M rt 


2.  SHAKESPEARE 

By  John  Masefield.  “  The  book  is  a  joy.  We  have  had  half-a-dozen  more 
learned  books  on  Shakespeare  in  the  last  few  years,  but  not  one  so  wise.”- — 
Manchester  Guardian. 

27.  ENGLISH  LITERATURE:  MODERN 

By  G.  H.  Mair,  M.A.  “Altogether  a  fresh  and  individual  book.” — Observer. 

35.  LANDMARKS  IN  FRENCH  LITER  A  TURE 

By  G.  L.  Strachey.  “  Mr  Strachey  is  to  be  congratulated  on  his  courage  and 
success.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  a  better  account  of  French  Literature 
could  be  given  in  250  small  pages  than  he  has  given  here.” — The  Times. 

3 


39>  ARCHITECTURE 

By  Prof.  W.  R.  Lethaby.  (Over  forty  Illustrations.)  “  Popular  guide-books 
to  architecture  are,  as  a  rule,  not  worth  much.  This  volume  is  a  welcome  excep¬ 
tion.” — Building  News.  “  Delightfully  bright  reading.” — Christian  World. 

43.  ENGLISH  LITERATURE:  MEDIAEVAL 

By  Prof.  W.  P.  Ker,  M.A.  “Prof.  Ker  has  long  proved  his  worth  as  one  of 
the  soundest  scholars  in  English  we  have,  and  he  is  the  very  man  to  put  an 
outline  of  English  Mediaeval  Literature  before  the  uninstructed  public.  His 
knowledge  and  taste  are  unimpeachable,  and  his  style  is  effective,  simple,  yet 
never  dry.” — The  Athenceum. 

45.  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE 

By  L.  Pearsall  Smith,  M.A.  “A  wholly  fascinating  study  of  the  different 
streams  that  went  to  the  making  of  the  great  river  of  the  English  speech.” — 
Daily  News. 

52.  GREAT  WRITERS  OF  AMERICA 

By  Prof.  J.  Erskine  and  Prof.  W.  P.  Trent.  A  popular  sketch  by  two 
foremost  authorities. 

In  Preparation 

ANCIENT  ART  AND  RITUAL.  By  Miss  Jane  Harrison,  LL.D., 
D.Litt. 

GREEK  LITER  A  TURE.  By  Prof.  Gilbert  Murray,  D.Litt. 

LA  TIN  LITER  A  TURE.  By  Prof.  J.  S.  Phillimore. 

CHA  UCER  AND  BIS  TIME.  By  Miss  G.  E.  Hadow. 

THE  RENAISSANCE.  By  Mrs  R.  A.  Taylor. 

ITALIAN  ART  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE.  By  Roger  E.  Fry,  M.A. 
THE  ART  OF  PAINTING.  By  Sir  Frederick  Wedmore. 

DR  JOHNSON  AND  HIS  CIRCLE.  By  John  Bailey,  M.A. 

THE  VICTORIAN  AGE.  By  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

ENGLISH  COMPOSITION.  By  Prof.  Wm.  T.  Brewster. 

GREA  T  WRITERS  OP  RUSSIA.  By  C.  T.  Hagberg  Wright,  LL.D. 
THE  LITERATURE  OF  GERMANY.  By  Prof.  J.  G.  Robertson, 
M.A.,  Ph.D. 

SCANDINAVIAN  HISTORY  AND  LITERATURE.  By  T.  C. 
Snow,  M.A. 


Science 


7,  MODERN  GEOGRAPHY 

By  Dr  Marion  Newbigin.  (Illustrated.)  “Geography,  again  :  what  a  dull, 
tedious  study  that  was  wont  to  be  !  .  .  .  But  Miss  Marion  Newbigin  invests  its 
dry  bones  with  the  flesh  and  blood  of  romantic  interest,  taking  stock  of 
geography  as  a  fairy -book  of  science.” — Daily  Telegi-aph. 

9.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  PLANTS 

By  Dr  D.  H.  Scott,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  late  Hon.  Keeper  of  the  Jodrell  Laboratory, 
Kew.  (Fully  illustrated.)  “The  information  which  the  book  provides  is  as 
trustworthy  as  first-hand  knowledge  can  make  it.  .  .  .  Dr  Scott’s  candid  and 
familiar  style  makes  the  difficult  subject  both  fascinating  and  easy.” — 
Gardeners'  Chronicle. 

17.  HEALTH  AND  DISEASE 

By  W.  Leslie  Mackenzie,  M.D.,  Local  Government  Board,  Edinburgh. 
“The  science  of  public  health  administration  has  had  no  abler  or  more  attractive 
exponent  than  Dr  Mackenzie.  He  adds  to  a  thorough  grasp  of  the  problems 
an  illuminating  style,  and  an  arresting  manner  of  treating  a  subject  often 
dull  and  sometimes  unsavoury.” — Economist. 

4 


1 8.  INTRODUCTION  TO  MATHEMATICS 


By  A.  N.  Whitehead,  Sc.D.,  F.R.S.  (With  Diagrams.)  “Mr Whitehead 
has  discharged  with  conspicuous  success  the  task  he  is  so  exceptionally  qualified 
to  undertake.  For  he  is  one  of  our  great  authorities  upon  the  foundations  of  the 
science,  and  has  the  breadth  of  view  which  is  so  requisite  in  presenting  to  the 
reader  its  aims.  His  exposition  is  clear  and  striking.” — Westminster  Gazette. 

19.  THE  ANIMAL  WORLD 

By  Professor  F.  W.  Gamble,  D.Sc.,  F.R.S.  With  Introduction  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge.  (Many  Illustrations.)  “  A  delightful  and  instructive  epitome  of  animal 
(and  vegetable)  life.  ..  .  A  most  fascinating  and  suggestive  survey.” — Morning 
Post. 

20.  EVOLUTION 

By  Professor  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and  Professor  Patrick  Geddes.  “A 
many-coloured  and  romantic  panorama,  opening  up,  like  no  other  book  we  know, 
a  rational  vision  of  world-development.” — Belfast  News-Letter. 

22.  CRIME  AND  INSANITY 

By  Dr  C.  A.  Mercier,  F.R.C.P.,  F.R.C.S.,  Author  of  “Text-Book  of  In¬ 
sanity,”  etc.  “  Furnishes  much  valuable  information  from  one  occupying  the 
highest  position  among  medico- legal  psychologists.” — Asylum  News. 

28.  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

By  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  F.R.S.,  Professor  of  Physics,  Royal  College  of  Science, 
Dublin,  1873-1910.  “  As  a  former  President  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society, 
he  is  familiar  with  all  the  developments  of  this  most  fascinating  branch  of  science, 
and  thus  what  he  has  to  say  on  thought-reading,  hypnotism,  telepathy,  crystal- 
vision,  spiritualism,  divinings,  and  so  on,  will  be  read  with  avidity.”— Dundee 
Courier. 

31.  ASTRONOMY 

By  A.  R.  Hinks,  M.A.,  Chief  Assistant,  Cambridge  Observatory.  “  Original 
in  thought,  eclectic  in  substance,  and  critical  in  treatment.  .  .  .  No  better 
little  book  is  available.” — School  World. 

32.  INTRODUCTION  TO  SCIENCE 

By  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.  A. ,  Regius  Professor  of  Natural  History,  Aberdeen 
University.  “  Professor  Thomson’s  delightful  literary  style  is  well  known  ;  and 
here  he  discourses  freshly  and  easily  on  the  methods  of  science  and  its  relations 
with  philosophy,  art,  religion,  and  practical  life.” — Aberdeen  Journal. 

36.  CLIMATE  AND  WEATHER 

By  H.  N.  Dickson,  D.Sc.  Oxon.,  M.A.,  F.R.S.  E.,  President  of  the  Royal 
Meteorological  Society  ;  Professor  of  Geography  in  University  College,  Reading. 
(With  Diagrams.)  “  The  author  has  succeeded  in  presenting  in  a  very  lucid 
and  agreeable  manner  the  causes  of  the  movement  of  the  atmosphere  and  of 
the  more  stable  winds  ."—Manchester  Guardian. 

41.  ANTHROPOLOGY 

By  R.  R.  Marett,  M.A.,  Reader  in  Social  Anthropology  in  Oxford  University. 
“An  absolutely  perfect  handbook,  so  clear  that  a  child  could  understand  it,  so 
fascinating  and  human  that  it  beats  fiction  ‘  to  a  frazzle.’  "—Morning  Leader . 

44.  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PHYSIOLOGY 

By  Prof.  J.  G.  McKendrick,  M.D.  It  is  a  delightful  and  wonderfully  com¬ 
prehensive  handling  of  a  subject  which,  while  of  importance  to  all,  does  not 
readily  lend  itself  to  untechnical  explanation.  .  .  .  The  little  book  is  more  than 
a  mere  repository  of  knowledge ;  upon  every  page  of  it  is  stamped  the  impress 
of  a  creative  imagination.” — Glasgow  Herald. 

5 


46.  MATTER  AND  ENERGY 

By  F.  Soddy,  M.A.,  F.R.S.  “A  most  fascinating  and  instructive  account  of 
the  great  facts  of  physical  science,  concerning  which  our  knowledge,  of  later 
years,  has  made  such  wonderful  progress.” — The  Bookseller. 

49.  PSYCHOLOGY ,  THE  STUDY  OF  BEHAVIOUR 

By  Prof.  W.  McDougall,  F.R.S. ,  M.B.  “A  happy  example  of  the  non¬ 
technical  handling  of  an  unwieldy  science,  suggesting  rather  than  dogmatising. 
It  should  whet  appetites  for  deeper  study.” — Christian  World. 

53.  THE  MAKING  OF  THE  EARTH 

By  Prof.  J.  VV.  Gregory,  F.R.S.  (With  38  Maps  and  Figures.)  The  Professor 
of  Geology  at  Glasgow  describes  the  origin  of  the  earth,  the  formation  and 
changes  of  its  surface  and  structure,  its  geological  history,  the  first  appearance 
of  life,  and  its  influence  upon  the  globe. 

57.  THE  HUMAN  BODY 

By  A.  Keith,  M.D.,  LL,D.,  Conservator  of  Museum  and  Hunterian  Pro¬ 
fessor,  Royal  College  of  Surgeons.  (Illustrated.)  The  work  of  the  dissecting- 
room  is  described,  and  among  other  subjects  dealt  with  are  :  the  development 
of  the  body  ;  malformations  and  monstrosities  ;  changes  of  youth  and  age  ;  sex 
differences,  are  they  increasing  or  decreasing  ?  race  characters  ;  bodily  features 
as  indexes  of  mental  character ;  degeneration  and  regeneration  ;  and  the 
genealogy  and  antiquity  of  man. 

58.  ELECTRICITY 

By  Gisbert  Kapp,  D.Eng.,  M.I.E.E.,  M.I.C.E.,  Professor  of  Electrical 
Engineering  in  the  University  of  Birmingham.  (Illustrated.)  Deals  with 
frictional  and  contact  electricity ;  potential ;  electrification  by  mechanical 
means  ;  the  electric  current  ;  the  dynamics  of  electric  currents ;  alternating 
currents  ;  the  distribution  of  electricity,  etc. 

In  Preparation 

CHEMISTRY.  Py  Prof.  R.  Meldola,  F.R.S. 

THE  MINERAL  WORLD.  By  Sir  T.  H.  Holland,  K.C.I.E.,  D.Sc. 
PLANT  LIFE.  By  Prof.  J.  B.  Farmer,  F.R.S. 

NERVES.  By  Prof.  D.  Fraser  Harris,  M.D.,  D.Sc. 

A  STUDY  OF  SEX.  By  Prof.  J.  A.  Thomson  and  Prof.  Patrick  Geddes. 
THE  GROWTH  OF  EUROPE.  By  Prof.  Grenville  Cole. 


Philosophy  and  Religion 


15.  MOHAMMEDANISM 

By  Prof.  D.  S.  Margoliouth,  M.A.,  D.Litt.  “This  generous  shilling’s 
worth  of  wisdom.  ...  A  delicate,  humorous,  and  most  responsible  tractate 
by  an  illuminative  professor.” — Daily  Mail. 

40.  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

By  the  Hon.  Bertrand  Russell,  F.R.S.  “A  book  that  the  ‘  man  in  the 
street  ’  will  recognise  at  once  to  be  a  boon.  .  .  .  Consistently  lucid  and  non¬ 
technical  throughout.” — Christian  World. 

47.  BUDDHISM 

By  Mrs  Rhys  Davids,  M.A.  “  A  very  able  and  concise  ‘study  of  the  Buddhist 
norm.’  .  .  .  The  author  presents  very  attractively  as  well  as  very  learnedly 
the  philosophy  of  Buddhism  as  the  greatest  scholars  of  the  day  interpret  it.”— 
Daily  News. 

6 


50.  NONCONFORMITY:  Its  ORIGIN  and  PROGRESS 

By  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  M.A.  “The  historical  part  is  brilliant  in  its 

insight,  clarity,  and  proportion,  and  in  the  later  chapters  on  the  present  position 
and  aims  of  Nonconformity  Dr  Selbie  proves  himself  to  be  an  ideal  exponent 
of  sound  and  moderate  views.” — Christian  World. 

54.  ETHICS 

By  G.  E.  Moore,  M.A.,  Lecturer  in  Moral  Science  in  Cambridge  University. 
Discusses  Utilitarianism,  the  Objectivity  of  Moral  Judgments,  the  Test  of 
Right  and  Wrong,  Free  Will,  and  Intrinsic  Value. 

56.  THE  MAKING  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

By  Prof.  B.  W.  Bacon,  LL.  D.,  D.D.  An  authoritative  summary  of  the  results 

of  modern  critical  research  with  regard  to  the  origins  of  the  New  Testament,  in 
“  the  formative  period  when  conscious  inspiration  was  still  in  its  full  glow  rather 
than  the  period  of  collection  into  an  official  canon,”  showing  the  mingling  of  the 
two  great  currents  of  Christian  thought — “  Pauline  and  ‘Apostolic,’  the  Greek- 
Christian  gospel  about  Jesus,  and  the  Jewish-Christian  gospel  of  Jesus,  the 
gospel  of  the  Spirit  and  the  gospel  of  authority.” 

60.  MISSIONS:  THEIR  RISE  and  DEVELOPMENT 

By  Mrs  Creighton.  The  beginning  of  modern  missions  after  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  and  their  growth  are  traced,  and  an  account  is  given  of  their  present 
work,  its  extent  and  character. 

In  Preparation 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  By  Prof.  George  Moore,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
BETWEEN  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENTS.  By  R.  H. 
Charles,  D.D. 

COMPARATIVE  RELIGION.  By  Prof.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  D.Litt. 
A  HISTOR  Y  of  FREEDOM  of  THOUGHT.  By  Prof.  J.  B.  Bury,  LL.D. 
A  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  By  Clement  Webb,  M.A. 


Social  Science 


I.  PARLIAMENT 

Its  History,  Constitution,  and  Practice.  By  Sir  Courtenay  P.  Ilbert, 
K.C.B.,  K.C.S.I.,  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Commons.  “The  best  book  on  the 
history  and  practice  of  the  House  of  Commons  since  Bagehot’s  ‘Constitution.’” — 
Yorkshire  Post. 

5.  THE  STOCK  EXCHANGE 

By  F.  W.  Hirst,  Editor  of  “The  Economist.”  “ To  an  unfinancial  mind  must 
be  a  revelation.  .  .  .  The  book  is  as  clear,  vigorous,  and  sane  as  Bagehot’s  ‘  Lom¬ 
bard  Street,’  than  which  there  is  no  higher  compliment.” — Morning  Leader. 

6.  IRISH  NATIONALITY 

By  Mrs  J.  R.  Green.  “  As  glowing  as  it  is  learned.  No  book  could  be  more 
timely.” — Daily  News.  “A  powerful  study.  .  .  .  A  magnificent  demonstration 
of  the  deserved  vitality  of  the  Gaelic  spirit.” — Freeman  s  Journal. 

10.  THE  SOCIALIST  MOVEMENT 

By  J.  Ramsay  MacDonald.  M.P.  “Admirably  adapted  for  the  purpose  of 
exposition.” — The  Times.  “  Mr  MacDonald  is  a  very  lucid  exponent.  .  .  .  The 
volume  will  be  of  great  use  in  dispelling  illusions  about  the  tendencies  of 
Socialism  in  this  country.” — The  Nation. 

II.  CONSERVATISM 

By  Lord  Hugh  Cecil,  M.A.,  M.P.  “One  of  those  great  little  books  which 
seldom  appear  more  than  once  in  a  generation.” — Morning  Post. 

7 


1 6.  THE  SCIENCE  OF  WEALTH 


By  J.  A.  Hobson,  M.A.  “Mr  J.  A.  Hobson  holds  an  unique  position  among 
living  economists.  .  .  .  The  text-book  produced  is  altogether  admirable. 
Original,  reasonable,  and  illuminating.” — The  Nation. 

21.  LIBERALISM 

By  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  London. 
“A  book  of  rare  quality.  .  .  .  We  have  nothing  but  praise  for  the  rapid  and 
masterly  summaries  of  the  arguments  from  first  principles  which  form  a  large 
part  of  this  book.” — Westminster  Gazette. 

24.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  INDUSTRY 

By  D.  H.  Macgregor,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  University 
of  Leeds.  “A  volume  so  dispassionate  in  terms  may  be  read  with  profit  by  all 
interested  in  the  present  state  of  unrest.” — Aberdeen  Journal. 

26.  AGRICULTURE 

By  Prof.  W.  Somerville,  F.L.S.  “  It  makes  the  results  of  laboratory  work 
at  the  University  accessible  to  the  practical  farmer.” — Athenceum. 

30.  ELEMENTS  OF  ENGLISH  LA  W  ' 

By  W.  M.  Geldart,  M.A.,  B.C.L.,  Vinerian  Professor  of  English  Law  at 
Oxford.  “Contains  a  very  clear  account  of  the  elementary  principles  under¬ 
lying  the  rules  of  English  law  ;  and  we  can  recommend  it  to  all  who  wish  to 
become  acquainted  with  these  elementary  principles  with  a  minimum  of 
trouble.” — Scots  Law  Times. 

38.  THE  SCHOOL 

An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Education. 

By  J.  J.  Findlay,  M.A.,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education  in  Manchester 
University.  “  An  amazingly  comprehensive  volume.  .  .  .  It  is  a  remarkable 
performance,  distinguished  in  its  crisp,  striking  phraseology  as  well  as  its 
inclusiveness  of  subject-matter.” — Morning  Post. 

59.  ELEMENTS  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY 

By  S.  J.  Chapman,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  Manchester 
University.  A  simple  explanation,  in  the  light  of  the  latest  economic  thought, 
of  the  working  of  demand  and  supply ;  the  nature  of  monopoly  ;  money  and 
international  trade  ;  the  relation  of  wages,  profit,  interest,  and  rent ;  and  the 
effects  of  labour  combination — prefaced  by  a  short  sketch  of  economic  study 
since  Adam  Smith. 

In  Preparation 

THE  CRIMINAL  AND  THE  COMMUNITY.  By  Viscount  St. 
Cyres  M.A, 

COMMONSENSE  IN  LAW.  By  Prof.  P.  Vinogradoff,  D.C.L. 

THE  CIVIL  SERVICE.  By  Graham  Wallas,  M.A. 

PRACTICAL  IDEALISM.  By  Maurice  Hewlett. 

NEWSPAPERS.  By  G.  Binney  Dibblee. 

ENGLISH  VILLAGE  LIFE.  By  E.  N.  Bennett,  M.A. 
CO-PARTNERSHIP  A  AD  PROFIT-SHARING.  By  Aneurin 
Williams,  J.P. 

THE  SOCIAL  SETTLEMENT.  By  Jane  Addams  and  R.  A.  Woods. 
GREA  T  INVENTIONS.  By  Prof.  J.  L.  Myres,  M.A.,  F.S.A. 

TOWN  PLANNING.  By  Raymond  Unwin. 

POLITICAL  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND :  From  Bentham  to  J.  S. 
Mill.  By  Prof.  W.  L.  Davidson. 

POLITICAL  THOUGHT  IN  ENGLAND:  From  Herbert  Spencer 
to  To-day.  By  Ernest  Barker,  M.A. 


London:  WILLIAMS  AND  NORGATE 

And  of  all  Bookshops  and  Bookstalls. 


Date  Due 


;‘u£ivrnir£ 


